


White Wings

by EsperKitty



Series: Light Catcher [3]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU, Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon-Typical Violence, Don't know to describe it other than angst, Fanon!Romelle, Flashbacks?, Gen, I think that's how to tag it, PTSD?, Some shipping!, Swearing! I think, VLD was kinda messed up if you think about it, probably?, still don't know how to tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-07
Updated: 2020-05-04
Packaged: 2021-03-01 03:14:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 30,827
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23018401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EsperKitty/pseuds/EsperKitty
Summary: Ryou went into space without much a plan, and it bit him in the butt.But now, he DOES have a plan, and he's going to make it work or die trying.
Relationships: Romelle/Ryou (Voltron)
Series: Light Catcher [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/982782
Comments: 2
Kudos: 2





	1. Chapter 1

Ryou hummed as he thread his way through asteroids and space debris, leaving a white trail behind him. He looked around, hoping to spot any obvious structures that could lead to where he wanted to go.

"What the?" He looked at the radar he was using as a guide. It said his destination was behind him, yet when he looked there was only more space and space stuff. Slowly this time, he flew back to where the radar said he was supposed to go.

Nothing but a large asteroid, roughly the size of a two story house.

"Hmm," he hummed in thought and held his chin. "Graz?"

The asteroid glowed green and opened up.

"Whoa," he oohed. "Pardon the intrusion." He went inside and his jaw nearly dropped.

The inside of the asteroid was much, MUCH larger. From the entry room alone he figured it was about as large as the Watchtower, or at least half that size. Still, he knew that was quite an amount of space to handle.

There were obvious signs that whoever built this was familiar and comfortable with Galra architecture, minus the dark gray being replaced with a lighter shade and the purple with Green Lantern approved green.

As Ryou was admiring the work, he heard a door open, followed by footsteps.

"Well well well," Graz, in his snazzy new Green Lantern uniform, appeared on the second level with the skeletal pegasus creature Wrava next to him. "If it isn't the stupid rebel with a new stupid power."

"Nice to see you too," Ryou flashed a smile.

Graz sighed. "What do you want?"

"Just came to see how you were doing." Ryou dropped the smile but still tried to keep a friendly demeanor. "I know we haven't had the best history-"

"That is an incredible understatement." Graz muttered as he tapped some buttons on a console.

"But I really do-" Ryou paused. "Care about you. And Thracer." He looked around again. "By the way, where is Thracer?"

"Another outpost." Graz finished tapping and the lights on Ryou's level flashed green.

Between the first and second levels, a green forcefield appeared as a mechanical voice began to say something about decontamination.

"Aw come on Graz," Ryou looked down at his feet to see various drains opening up. "Do we really have to do the deep cleaning routine?"

"Yes." Graz said, somewhat annoyed, while he walked off to where Ryou couldn't see him.

A soapy, bubbly cleaning agent was sprayed and Ryou felt a cold chill claw down his spine. He shook it off, telling himself he was only imagining the stinging pain. Next, hot water, which he enjoyed. Then, the entire area filled with water. He took this moment to simply float and think about a few things. Finally, there was a strong current of air that whipped his hair around in an annoying but kind of fun way.

When the green forcefield had been lifted, Ryou shook off the clean feeling and looked up to see Graz floating between the levels.

"Ugh," Ryou groaned. "Smells like a hospital."

"Well you smelled like Mungtor snot," Graz flashed a smile.

Ryou huffed and smiled back. "So, care to show me around?"

"Maybe," Graz shrugged. "That power ring isn't just for show, correct?"

"You know it." Ryou joined Graz in the air and they began a tour of the outpost, which was-as he correctly guessed-about half the size of the Watchtower.

There was a training floor, a fully furnished dining hall with a large kitchen, a medical bay, some escape pods, and an armory-all sporting repainted Galra tech. A few more personal quarters were present, seemingly unused as Graz definitely might have scrubbed it down when any guests left. If he had any, of course.

This far out, nearing the outer edge of the empire's territory, guests would be few and far between, not to mention most of them might be Galra.

"Pretty lonely place," Ryou said out loud as he ate some food goo.

"Not entirely." Graz corrected. "Most are refugees trying to escape the Empire." He looked at the star map, one side a bit empty, the other heavily detailed. "I can't guarantee them safety, but I have scouted a few habitable places out there."

"Still," Ryou sighed. "Wrava-" he looked at the creature again, seeing it hiss at him. "Doesn't seem to be your type of companion."

"I am perfectly fine with it." Graz argued with very little change in his expression and tone.

"Nope." Ryou wagged his finger. "Nope nope nope. Animals need attention. I should know," he patted his chest. "I have been called a wild animal many times and I get into quite a bit trouble all the time."

Graz rolled his eyes.

"Come on." Ryou nudged him a bit. "I have a few ideas. No mess, no fuss."

Graz narrowed his eyes. "Is the Alamort not enough?"

Ryou shrugged and snapped his fingers and a small pile of scrap appeared on the table. Obviously, Graz had some reservations but his protests were shut down as Ryou began work with the scrap.

Wires and panels began to come together, their awkward shapes reforming themselves with a little help from the white ring. Ryou hummed a little song all the while, grabbing each piece he needed without even looking at where his hand was going. Within a few moments, where once was a mess of mismatched parts sat a polished roomba.

"Ta-dah!" Ryou clapped his hands. "What do you think?"

With suspicion and amazement, Graz, and Wrava, began to inspect the little machine. He looked at it from all angles. Even picking it up to inspect the underside.

"I can hook it up to the battery if you'd like." Ryou said, still smiling.

"What does it do?" Graz asked as it beeped to life.

"Depends on what you want," Ryou shrugged. "I made some for Varice that have little knives attached to them. The least I can program it to do is clean-"

Ryou was stopped by Graz putting a finger to his mouth.

"You had me at clean." Graz put the little roomba down and smiled as it began to clean up some of the leftover dust from its creation process.

"Then I only have one question for you." Ryou cracked his knuckles. "How many do you want?"

An army, apparently. Or a battalion. Exactly one hundred were made and Graz seemed over the moon about them.

Ryou was about to tease him about it when he realized Thracer was not here. He had turned to talk to them but was surprised to see only empty air. He looked back to Graz and frowned a bit.

"I'm-" Ryou said, clearing his throat. "I'm gonna see Thracer after this." He could see the shift in mood in Graz's posture. "Do you want me to tell them anything?"

Graz went quiet.

"I mean, you can contact them whenever you want." Ryou shrugged and realized that only made the other feel worse. "You have talked to Thracer, right?"

Graz was still quiet.

"Hey." Ryou put a hand on Graz's shoulder. "Graz."

That made something snap with Graz as he slapped away Ryou's hand. "I am not on conversational terms with them." He stood up straight and went off on his own. "Feel free to use any room you like. Don't leave a mess."

Ryou frowned and sighed. He kicked a chair, spooking Wrava, and immediately regretted it.

"Fu-!" He hissed, trying not to say the first word that came to mind. "Why am I like this?" He growled and took a few deep breaths. "Calm. Calm. I'm calm. I got this."

For now, however, Ryou would need his rest.

Taking one of the guest rooms, Ryou went over his plan again and again, factoring in every contingency he could think of. Finally when his brain seemed to be overheating, he flopped face first into a pillow and tried to get some sleep.

Tried.

After some tossing and turning, he found that sitting with his back against the wall was the most comfortable position.

"Good night Ryou." He told himself, closing his eyes and hoping he'd fall asleep soon. His thoughts wandered, from Graz and Thracer, to Romelle-which made his heart flutter just a tiny bit faster. He thought of home, of family. How and when he should actually get back to finding Taka...

He awoke to one of the roombas beeping like a banshee at him.

"Good morning," he groaned, shooing it away. He was a bit stiff from sleeping in a somewhat awkward position but a quick stretch loosened him up. "Show time." He snapped his fingers and disappeared in a burst of white light, appearing in the smaller dining hall just as Graz came in.

Graz sighed. "Salutations."

"Sup." Ryou did a mock salute. "So about our talk yesterday-"

"I already said I am not on conversational terms with Thracer." Graz growled, accompanied by a low hiss from Wrava.

Ryou sneezed. "Sorry," he sniffled. "I'm allergic to bull turds. One mi-er, dobash." He held up his pointer finger. "If you can talk to Thracer for one dobash, I'll drop the subject and never bother you about it again. Deal?" Ryou held out his hand.

With some hesitation, Graz shook Ryou's hand. "Deal. But only one dobash. And not a tick more."

They had some breakfast-more food goo-and set up in the bridge.

All it would take is one push of a button and yet Graz was frozen with his finger hovering above it.

"Wanan know what helped me back in the day?" Ryou asked, making Graz jump a bit.

"What?" Graz asked.

"Saying the oath." Ryou said with a tilt of his head.

"Oh." Graz simply replied. "I see."

"Go on." Ryou nodded his head. "You know the words. In brightest day."

"In-" Graz took a deep breath. "In brightest day, in darkest night, no evil shall escape my sight-"

The green lights glowed a little brighter.

"Let those who worship evil's might, beware my power-Green lantern's light!"

A wave of green energy wafted over the area, spreading out further to every last nook and cranny of the outpost. Even Wrava shook a little.

"Feeling better?" Ryou asked.

Graz nodded and pushed the call button.

A few second passed as the call went through. Graz began to impatiently drum his fingers.

"What's taking so long?" He asked.

"Well how far is their outpost?" Ryou asked back.

The screen finally displayed a familiar friendly face.

"Salutations!" Thracer happily greeted. "Oh, Graz." Their smile fell a bit. "It's you."

"I-" Graz began to say, seeing Ryou hold up a finger to remind him of the time limit they had agreed on. "I wanted to see how you were doing. I know we did not part on the best of terms. I mean, how could I ever face you after such a cowardly display-"

"Me?" Thracer seemed surprised. "How could you face me? I was dreading that you had truly begun to hate me! I was the one who turned traitor first!"

Graz laughed a bit. "I beg to differ-"

"Then beg." Thracer smiled, holding in a chuckle.

Ryou watched as the two had a lengthy conversation that was far longer than a minute. Honestly, what kind of person would Ryou be if he actually enforced it? He wasn't a saint by any means but even he wasn't about to cut these two off.

Speaking of, when they did finally end their conversation, Ryou had already helped himself to a meal... in Thracer's outpost. He popped in about half an hour into their game of catch-up and was surprised to see that it was almost exactly the same as Graz's, minus location and not being an extra-dimensional pocket.

All in all, the two, three including Wrava, seemed to be doing well for themselves.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Draft mechanic is my friend here because my laptop is kinda iffy when it comes to connecting to the internet, which itself is kinda iffy as well.
> 
> Here's chapter 2!

"Oh my stars," Thracer looked at the white ring on Ryou's finger. "How powerful is this?"

"Don't really know," Ryou shrugged. "Though I'm going to say pretty powerful."

Thracer hummed and admired the ring.

Ryou smiled and constructed a simple batarang. "How about we do some sparring and see how it holds up against you, newbie?"

"Excuse you," Thracer smirked. "I happen to be the most adaptable combatant, as declared by my commanding officers."

"Same!" Ryou tossed the batarang, whizzing it around Thracer's head and catching it with a smirk of his own. "And I happened to be the youngest to break the Green Lantern record for most intricate construct."

That definitely sparked a competitiveness in Thracer.

The two moved to the sparring room and jumped at each other as soon as the door closed, with constructs at the ready.

In Thracer's hand was a gauntlet too big for their body that they carried as if it was a feather.

In Ryou's, he had a fistful of batarangs, which were tossed at the soonest possible moment.

While Thracer dodged most of them, the ones they missed had exploded into light, momentarily blinding them.

Rushing in behind Thracer, Ryou was ready to grab them in a choke hold. He saw their leg muscles twitch and he reeled back just in time to dodge a swift kick that would have hit his face.

"Good hustle!" Ryou smiled.

"Thanks," Thracer took a swipe with the gauntlet. "You too!"

Jumping back, Ryou constructed a giant hammer that Harley might approve of if not for its all white coloration. He swung it and Thracer leaped back halfway across the room.

"You're quite reliant on brute force!" Thracer smiled as the gauntlet now had a large blade. "A welcomed trait in any worthy Galra!"

Ryou felt a snarl in his throat as he willed the hammer to turn into a bat-themed javelin that he threw at Thracer.

Thracer bent way too far back and cartwheeled onto their feet as the began to run towards Ryou.

A sound was in the back of Ryou's mind, creeping closer and closer into his thoughts as he dodged the flurry of blows from Thracer.

He constructed a simple chain and sickle, wrapping the chain around Thracer's gauntlet and pulled down hard. The gauntlet lost its shape and Thracer used some of that light to form a whip, which they cracked with gusto.

The whip slapped both itself and Ryou's own chain into his face, scratching his cheek just enough to draw one tiny drop of blood.

"Oof," Thracer hissed a bit. "Sorry but does this mean I win?"

Another snarl crept its way onto Ryou's tongue as he charged forward with a new construct forming in his hands. Thracer might have said something but he couldn't hear it over the annoying and buzzing noise in his head. 

He swung and felt a fire in his veins. Looking up, his breathing shallow, and he saw pillars around him. A faceless crowd cheering him on as he held the sword in his hands. Craning his head a little more he saw glowing yellow eyes glaring down at him.

"NO!"

Ryou shut his eyes and pushed away everything around him with a burst of white energy.

Silence took over. Shaking, trying to get his breath steady, he looked around and saw the training floor again, now destroyed by spikes. Thracer was laying near the farthest wall, groaning as they pulled themselves up, a few inches away from a spike. They coughed and looked up at Ryou with worry.

"Oh fu-" Ryou covered his mouth and helped them up, though he was hesitant when he saw Thracer flinch at his touch. "I'm sorry! I'm so sorry Thracer I-"

Thracer stopped him with a hand. "There is no need for apologies." They smiled a bit, reassuringly either for themselves or for Ryou.

Ryou took a deep breath and Thracer had suddenly decided to get something to eat, though Ryou wasn't in the mood for food.

He was about to go fix up the training room when his ring began beeping.

"What?" He looked at it and tried to make sense of it. He answered it. "Hello?"

"Ryou." Romelle's voice answered, hushed, relieved but a bit angered. "Are you there?"

"Y-Yeah," Ryou answered, memories surfacing and bringing a flush of red to his cheeks. "What's up?"

"I'm assuming you haven't came into contact with the Paladins." She asked.

"Nope." Ryou said. "Kinda got distracted by going into an alternate reality and realizing what a dumpster fire my attitude's been."

Romelle paused and took a breath. He had a feeling that she had THAT look of exasperation on her face. "Well, I believe you should find them soon. Something's wrong."

"How bad is it?" Ryou asked, imagining the worst. No, he shook his head. The worst couldn't have happened. The rebels would have known. The Empire would have known, celebrated it even.

"They're working with Lotor." Romelle hissed.

That name again.

Last he heard, Lotor was wanted. He heard news of Lotor killing Zarkon, and of an incredibly important duel for the throne that he unfortunately missed. Besides that, he hadn't heard much else besides the usual trash talking from higher ups in the Empire. Bruce would definitely lecture him about that later.

"That lying, scheming-" Romelle was definitely pissed as she struggled to come up with a word worthy of her fury. "Son of a-! Quiznack!" She hushed herself.

"Hey aren't I also a scheming quiznack according to you?" Ryou muttered a bit as he tried to bend back some of the training room's wall into its proper shape.

"Yes but I-" she clicked her tongue. "Tolerate you. And as far as I know, you don't have a secret colony of Alteans that you're using to harvest quintessence."

Ryou accidentally broke the wall even more. "I'm sorry he has what?"

"If I repeat myself I might vomit." Romelle growled. "Me and my brother Bandor snuck in to see just how bad it was and-" she choked on her words.

He knew that tone and it hurt to hear it from her.

"Romelle," Ryou said, no longer fiddling with the wall. "Where is Lotor right now?"

Quiet shuffling and shaking breathing was all he heard. "With the Paladins of Voltron. He has them convinced he'll be a better leader than Zarkon. Especially your brother, Takashi."

A pause, she was fiddling with something.

"Ryou, I-"

There was another voice in the background. It was faint but he recognized it.

It was Keith.

"I've got to go." Romelle whispered.

"Wait, Romelle-!"

The line went dead and Ryou wanted nothing more than to go see her-and possibly Keith if his mind wasn't still playing tricks on him right this second. But he looked down at the pieces of the wall he had broken and growled in frustration, scratching his head and ruffling his hair like a mad man.

"Get things done!" Ryou shouted as he used the white ring to get all the pieces together and began working with the pieces that way instead.

It couldn't have been a single minute when he got another notification on his ring. He answered it quickly.

"Yeah?" He was making sure everything was in place before making some final adjustments.

"Oh my god you actually answered." Another familiar voice greeted.

"Guy?" Ryou paused and asked.

"Who else?" Guy Freaking Gardner asked back. "Hey you make any progress on that unofficial job of yours?"

"Not in the mood to talk right now," Ryou was basically welding all the broken pieces together at this point.

"Well as your superior in the Corps-"

"Dude I'm a whole rainbow right now, I have no rank," Ryou interrupted.

"Yeah yeah listen, your twin came back a while ago-"

"And you didn't tell me why?" Ryou shot a hiss. What did he mean Takashi came back? How long ago?

"Because you never called-" Guy shot back.

No. "Fair enough." No no no.

"And he helped out on some groundwork for the defense plans." Guy sounded like he was smirking. "And jeez-louis did he give the Guardians on Oa an earful. I didn't think ol' Golden Boy could get that pissed off."

"Always fear the wrath of a patient man Guy." Ryou whizzed through the outpost, spotting little space caterpillars here and there as his mind began racing. "And Taka's spent a whole lifetime practicing that patience." And if only Ryou himself had practiced that patience.

"Listen, he's back on Earth, trying to keep everything under control, and let me tell you he's also lookin' to give you the mother of all lectures-"

"Which I'm fully prepared for." Ryou sighed, trying not to sound as panicked as he felt. If only he waited! "Wait how are we talking right now?"

"You ain't using the green ring?" Guy sounded confused.

"Well yes but actually no," Ryou looked at the white ring again and all of the events that led to it being on his finger. "It's a long story."

"Alright," Guy sounded unconvinced. "Listen he told me to tell you to get back to his team-"

Ryou froze. If Taka wasn't with the Paladins, then who was? If Lotor, the manipulative son of two power hungry zombies, was with them-if only he had waited and let the Justice League do their jobs!

"Ryou?" Guy asked. "You okay there kid? You're growling like a rabid mutt."

"Listen, I-" Ryou paused, feeling the heat on his cheeks again and his heart pounding for several different reasons. "Have another source of information when it comes to the Empire. She told me that Takashi was already with the Paladins."

"How long ago was that?" Guy asked.

"Not even a minute before you called." Ryou growled. "Something's not right. I'll call you back."

"Don't do something stupid." Guy warned.

"No promises Gardner." Ryou said as he disconnected the call and found Thracer. "Thracer! You said you hacked into the Empire's database right? Did they clone my brother?"

"Is that what Operation Kuron was?" Thracer raised an eyebrow.

"FU-!" Ryou began to roar but lowered it to a hiss. "-udge pickle on a stick!" He managed to replace whatever else he was going to say. "I'm heading out!"

"Be safe!" Thracer said just as Ryou blinked out in a flash of white light.

Ryou popped back into being in the middle of nowhere space.

"Come on come on come on." He began flying at the highest speed he knew. If only he had waited and let his father do what he does best. Takashi would have come home. Ryou would have been there and not here and-"Come on Romelle."

No answer.

But he did get a ping on her location.

"Please be there Keith," Ryou whispered to himself as he sped past space junk, still mentally kicking himself. "Please."

He sped past some more asteroids and saw a familiar planet that, according to the white ring, was Romelle's current location.

Ryou looked down at the planet, knowing exactly where the bunker would be.

"Uugghh," Ryou groaned and wiped his face, shaking off his doubts. "This family's gonna be the death of me."

He made his way down, preparing himself for anything that could be down there, and hoping for the best.

Really, truly, and desperately hoping for the best.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welp that's quite the monkey wrench. If you don't like shipping I'm sorry but Ryoumelle in GoLion/Oldtron/whatever you wanna call it was awesome from what screenshots I've seen, you know, even after they merged Shiro and Ryou into one character(Sven).
> 
> Wait is that why they merged Shiro and Jiro/Kuron? *X Files theme plays*

Ryou touched down near the bunker, seeing a Galra by the crater the orange ring made what felt like a lifetime ago. He hissed and snuck past them to get to the bunker.

He saw no one around the bunker.

"Romelle!" He whisper yelled. "Romelle!" He was actually damn near hissing loudly. "Where are you?" He snuck around the bunker, seeing no one through the windows. "Ugh we really left this place to collect dust huh?" He snuck his way to the door, which he noticed to be slightly ajar. He looked in. "Romelle?"

A force suddenly pulled him in and close the door.

He was about to respond with a construct weapon to the approximate face area when a flash of blue light surprised him.

Standing before him was Romelle in a black and blue outfit that Ryou recognized as a Lantern uniform, seeing the symbol on her chest.

"Ryou!" Romelle hissed at him. "Are you insane!?"

He looked back up at her eyes. "You kept the ring?"

Romelle was briefly surprised. "Of course." She looked him up and down. "And you..."

Ryou cleared his throat and took off the white ring. "I still have it-!" He showed his left hand, where the blue ring sat on his middle finger, next to the green, indigo, and violet rings. "Right where you left it." He smiled a bit sheepishly.

She narrowed her eyes. "Your other hand."

With some reluctance, Ryou showed his right hand, which had the red, orange, and yellow rings, though his middle finger was free of the white ring.

After examining the rings, Romelle smiled. "Guess you were able to get that violet one after all, huh?"

His eyes went wide and he began to laugh. "Yeah. Rub it in, why don't you?"

Romelle laughed with him and sighed, looking down. "What are you doing here?"

"What am I-?" Ryou sputtered. "What am I doing here? You call me, talking about how horrible Lotor is, telling me my family is probably being brainwashed by him, then suddenly hang up. Why wouldn't I be worried about you?"

Romelle seemed squeamish about something, her eyes quickly darkening with anger. "Avok sent us there to die."

"What?" Ryou looked at her with even more worry.

"He sent us there knowing what Lotor does to the Alteans there and when I told him that Bandor had-" Romelle clenched her fist and took a deep breath. "He was surprised I was still alive."

"What did-" Ryou began to say. "What did you do?"

"Nothing." Romelle answered as she opened the door just a tiny bit. "I told Avok he could walk into a supernova and found my own way out of Lotor's little trap."

Ryou remembered what he heard-or at least what he thought he heard. "You found someone."

Another voice, a woman's, called out from nearby, a bit dull and muffled by the bunker's walls.

"-melle?" The voice called.

"Quiznack." Romelle stepped away from the door. "It's that Blade woman."

"I really neglected the basics out here," Ryou muttered to himself, not knowing what she was talking about.

"Hush up, follow my lead. Act like you don't know me." Romelle's skin began to darken into a deep brown . She took off her blue ring, revealing the simple tunic and boots he had first seen her in, and began pushing Ryou to the bathroom. "Pretend you live here."

"Wait what-?" Ryou raised an eyebrow. "What are you-?" The bathroom door shut in his face.

He heard Romelle's footsteps rush to the door, open it quickly, and shuffle about. She screamed and he opened the door, white ring at the ready.

"What's wrong!?" Ryou opened the door just as three others entered the room. One was the Galra he saw, then there was the growling space wolf, the other was-

"Ryou?" Keith looked at him with confusion.

"Keith?" Ryou looked at him with an equal amount of confusion.

The Galra woman, who looked remarkably like Keith, softened up and let Keith walk, or more so jump, forward into Ryou with a full body embrace.

"Whoa whoa whoa!" Ryou smiled and laughed a bit. "The Keith I know doesn't jump into my arms like that." Ryou cupped Keith's face in his hands. "Who are you and what did you do to my little grumpy desert goblin?"

Keith smiled back, genuinely and warmly, and laughed as well. "Well I found my mother first of all." He looked back to the Galra woman.

"Krolia." She introduced herself and held out her hand.

"Ryou Shirogane." Ryou shook hands with her.

"Romelle." Romelle said, sheepishly also holding out her hand.

Ryou looked at her with some confusion, exasperation, and general amusement at how bad she was acting like a scared damsel in distress. "Nice to meet you too, random stranger in my space bunker." He shook her hand and winked.

"Oh my god," Keith immediately groaned. "Did you seriously jump to Flirting Mode that quickly?"

"Maybe. Maybe not. You never know." Ryou shot a smile at Keith. "Anyways welcome to my bunker. Feel free to make yourselves at home. Don't mind the dead rat in the bathroom, that's just Drake the Fifth."

"The fifth?" Krolia raised an eyebrow, looking at Keith who just shrugged.

"I was kinda out on bit of a camping trip, so don't mind the dust either." Ryou noticed Romelle's little twitching expression, the same one she had when they first met at the space mall.

"Ryou you're terrible at lying." Keith lightly punched Ryou's shoulder as he made his way to the bathroom. "Batman would be disa-" Keith went silent and the alien wolf, after calming down, began to sniff around the little bunker.

"Say hi to Drake while you're in there." Ryou smiled. "So, how about I get some food ready?"

"That sounds nice." Krolia smiled. "Romelle? You hungry?"

Romelle, who was giving Ryou a certain pout that he found rather adorable, looked back at Krolia with an odd attempt at innocent and worried doe eyes. "O-Oh. Yes. Food sounds lovely."

Ryou snickered to himself at that. Still, he managed to cook up a quick meal. It was a simple oatmeal-like concoction, sweetened with an alien sugar, and served with tea. All of which were from his private stash of ingredients he wanted to share with Alfred-despite knowing the stubbornness of the man.

Keith explained that Krolia was a part of a secret group called the Blades of Marmora that was trying to take down the Empire from the inside. Keith's knife, the one made of strange material that no one could identify, was proof of that, as Ryou saw it turn into a sword. The half-alien thing didn't exactly hit like a truck, Ryou saw an old file on the Batcomputer that detailed some unknown bits of Keith's genetic code, but the Galra part made him squirm a bit. But Keith was still Keith, and he was still family.

"Ryou," Keith looked at him as the four, five including the wolf, finished up their meal. "You never said why you were out here. I thought you were back on Earth."

"Nope." Ryou took a sip of his tea. "Went looking for you guys and things didn't quite pan out the way I-" he looked at Romelle again. "Hoped."

Romelle's eyebrow twitched.

Keith definitely noticed that but didn't say anything.

"Been on the old cosmic trail for a while," Ryou continued. "What about you? Thought you were a Paladin."

At that, Keith looked down. "Things..." He began to explain. "Got complicated. Shiro disappeared and he wanted me to lead Voltron if anything ever happened to him and-" he sighed. "I wasn't ready."

Ryou put a hand on Keith's shoulder. "I'll kick his ass for you."

"No." Keith smiled. "I kinda did that when he came back."

"Weird," Ryou said. "Guy called me and said that Taka gave the Guardians of Oa a very stern talking to and was taking care of defenses down on Earth."

"What?" Keith looked at him, eyes wide with shock. "Then who was piloting the Black Lion?"

Ryou shrugged, trying not to let his own anger bubble up too much. "Whoever it is, he's getting his ass kicked and I'm gonna crush him in a bear hug."

Keith stood up from his seat. "Mom we gotta go."

"Right." Krolia nodded and stood as well. "Romelle, stay here. Ryou, you coming?"

Ryou cracked his knuckles. "Why not?"

"What!?" Romelle yelled. "No! No no no! You aren't leaving me alone here!"

"I'll leave a communicator in case anything happens-" Keith began to say.

"No." Romelle stood her ground.

Ryou looked at Romelle and saw that her anger was genuine. Her damsel in distress act had been tossed aside and she was furious about having to stay on the side lines.

"I'll stay." Ryou said simply, voice low.

"Are you sure?" Keith asked, surprised. "You risked your life out here looking for Shiro-for us. You sure you're not coming?"

That question hurt. It stabbed him in the heart, tore it out, and stomped it to dust. As much as he wanted to, now was not the time.

"Yeah." Ryou nodded. "I waited a few years to see Takashi. What's another day or two?" He smiled.

Keith pulled Ryou into a hug, which Ryou returned as much as he could without breaking apart.

"Don't disappear on me." Keith said, practically burying his face into Ryou's chest.

"I won't." Ryou ruffled Keith's hair and with that, the mother and son duo were off. Though it was a familiar feeling, seeing people he cared for running head first into danger, he still couldn't get over the fear and heartache that scratched in the back of his mind.

When the ship was out of sight, Ryou let out a heavy sigh and sat in the bed with his face in his hands, the sigh becoming a loud and whining groan.

"Are you done or do you feel like attracting a Mungtor with that noise?" Romelle looked at him with some amusement and a bit of sympathy.

"What the heck is a Mungtor by the way?" Ryou asked.

"Something that might eat you when I'm done crushing your bones into dust." Romelle sighed. "I told you to act like you don't know me."

"I did!" Ryou said. "I winked! Did you not see the wink?"

Romelle sighed. "I can't believe I-" she muttered and rubbed her temples. "Okay. We need a plan. We'll put on our rings and head over to the colony. There we can move the Alteans before the next selection. You can pose as Lotor's newest subordinate-"

"Why not go to Lotor and you know?" Ryou gestured tying a string around something and tightening it.

"He's the Emperor now." Romelle said sarcastically. "And he's with the Paladins, who he has at his beck and call. Their princess adores him, and the High Priestess is doing-" she fumbled with herself. "Something! Who knows what they're using all that quintessence for! We need proof that he's as terrible as his father to bring him and his whole miserable species down!"

Ryou thought for a moment and felt something-no, multiple things were wrong.

Cloning, a controversial ruler, a secretive advisor who's lost her mind to power.

"A power vacuum occurred between Zarkon's death and Lotor claiming the throne, right?" Ryou asked.

"Yes," Romelle answered. "Why is that important now? It's been filled."

"Brute force is a welcomed trait of any worthy Galra," Ryou echoed Thracer's words. "And from what I heard, Lotor isn't about brute force. He's a sweet talking manipulator. And I'm willing to bet that not everyone is happy that he's in charge now."

"A revolt?" Romelle asked. "From within the empire itself?"

"They'll be fighting each other and if the Paladins can't do anything, countless lives are going to get caught in the fire." Ryou explained as he felt his skin buzzing. "You need to go."

"What?" Romelle looked at war with herself.

"Teleport to Keith," Ryou continued. "Drop this whole helpless bystander act and tell him-"

"I love you."


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *stares into the camera like I'm in The Office*

"Wh-what?" Ryou asked in a small voice, processing the words he just heard.

"I love you." Romelle repeated.

Ryou nodded. "I heard that part."

Romelle raised an eyebrow, looking a bit panicked. "I-" she fidgeted. "I keep thinking about the talk we had. Of all the talks we've had and I find myself wanting to talk to you more. To be with you more."

Ryou stood dumbfounded, feeling a familiar sensation in his chest.

"That day we sparred, with my blue ring against your red ring, I kept asking myself why you would intentionally make yourself weaker. Why you would allow yourself to be weak." Romelle continued to speak. "But when I look into your eyes, I feel..." she took a deep breath. "I feel that I know the answer. Because I feel that vulnerability when I think of you. Vulnerable yet stronger, somehow, if that makes sense."

His face turned bright red. "It does." His voice cracked.

Romelle stepped back a bit. "Do you... feel that same way?"

"What?" Ryou became alert at that, seeing that she seemed afraid of how he might answer. "I can understand how you feel. I-" he scratched the back of his head. "I've felt it before. And each time, I get hurt." He can see her fidgeting a bit. "I just felt so tired of trying, you know? Of trying to make something and to see it crumble away because I don't know if I would be strong enough to try again." He sighed and smiled at her. "So to make a long story short, yes. I do feel the same way."

Romelle smiled back and stepped closer, putting her hand on his chest. "A lot of times, I find myself wanting our talks to be more than talks."

"I know...but," Ryou felt that buzzing in his skin again, seeing Romelle's face harden a bit as he spoke. "Something's happening. Something big, I can feel it. You need to go."

"I'm not leaving you alone." Romelle sternly told him. "Not again."

"Romelle," Ryou held her shoulders. "The Galra has been terrorizing the universe, unrivaled in fire power and numbers. But now, we can fight back. And we can fight back because with each victory we earn, we give hope." He held her hands in his. "When I received this power, I heard a voice telling me that destiny was waiting."

"Destiny." She scoffed.

"I know I know," Ryou nodded in understanding. "Whatever is waiting, be it destiny or a perfect storm of circumstances, we have a chance to turn the tides right here, right now."

She looked down, tightening her grip on his hands, gently considering her strength.

"They can't lose hope." Ryou said. "We-" he looked right into her eyes, a small reassuring smile on his face. "We can't lose hope."

Romelle sighed and smiled back.

"Whatever happens-"

Romelle put a finger on his lips.

"Go." She said. "I'll do what I can on my side." She pressed herself against his chest, her head on his heart. "You do what you can."

Ryou held her tightly and nodded.

Hesitantly, they let go of each other and in a flash of blue light, Romelle disappeared, off to join the Paladins in whatever was happening.

Standing frozen, Ryou went outside the bunker and punched the first large rock he saw, roaring out all the frustration pent up inside of him before quickly regaining some semblance of composure.

Not too long ago, they had sat here and agreed war was no time for such things. He said, to himself, over and over again, and to her, that he was done looking for that sort of thing. For finding someone who would be patient with his eccentricities. Done searching for someone who could keep up with the masks and lies and dangers of the night. Finished with the heartbreak, the grief, and never ending fear of that person getting hurt, or worse, because of him.

But that day... He looked into her eyes and in those pools of soft violet and glimmering gold, there was a spark. At first he thought he imagined it, thinking he was merely touch starved and desperate for any positive attention, mistaking her motives despite another part of him screaming at him that she was being incredibly obvious about what she wanted. But the more he pushed those feelings down, the more they forced their way back up.

She admitted to feeling at peace around him, despite knowing what he was capable of and attacking her in a greedy rage. More than that, she admitted that she loved him, that despite all of the fighting around them, she was willing make time for those feelings. And Ryou....

He shook his head and shot up into the atmosphere, whizzing around with no clear direction and faster than what he was physically used to, increasing his speed as his emotions bubbled up. After aimlessly whirling about, the ring beeping in his ears as he tried to find where he was supposed to go, he disappeared in a flash of white and on the other side he felt a great surge of energy knocking the wind out of him.

Looking around, staggering with his eyes blurry and coming into focus, he saw the unstructured emptiness of the seams, and within the real of swirling and endless energy was a large mechanical entity.

Still.

Almost lifeless.

But inside, Ryou can sense a life struggling to stay, and that life was holding on by all of the pain surrounding it.

Taking another look around, he could see various tears and openings and boy was the white ring beeping at him like a fire alarm.

"Now look what happens when you let kids play with scissors," Ryou felt his voice echoing as energy pulsed in and out of his system. "They just make a mess."

A part of him felt that he knew what to do to fix those tears.

One by one, he tried to weld them shut, zipping faster than he ever felt before, but no matter how fast he was, they kept tearing themselves back open.

"Oh for the love of-!" He growled.

The life inside the giant robot was fading more now.

Ryou growled again and messed with his hair. "Think fast! Think fast! Think fast!" He looked at his fingers and had an idea.

It was risky.

It was stupid.

It had a chance to blow up in his face in the worst and most literal way possible.

But it could, with just the right timing, allow him to fix the tears that threatened to get bigger and save the life that was slipping away with every second.

He took of the white ring and held it between his palms, feeling it buzzing and burning every fiber of his body.

"Alright Constantine," he whispered, feeling even more energy surging through him and flowing without an outlet. "Don't let six months of magic lessons fail me now!"

He took a deep breath and the ring glowed.

The words were a bit awkward, but he kept going until the spell was fully prepared. The ring glowed brightly, burning more and more, though he did not falter.

Finally, the ring was too hot to handle, and it glowed intensely.

"Og." Ryou let the ring go and it disappeared from view.

Now, he could focus on the battered and broken mechanical wonder in front of him.

"Alright," he felt a stinging pain in his everything, especially in his hands. "Let's see what Doctor Ryou can do for this patient."

Rage.

Avarice.

Fear.

Willpower.

Hope.

Compassion.

Love.

All those emotions flowed through him, casting off sparks as he realized each of the rings were powered in this realm.

He reached the robot as fast as Flash, maybe faster, and looked inside what looked to be the cockpit.

"Oh hello Your Highness," Ryou said, recognizing Lotor. "Or is it Your Majesty now?"

Lotor wheezed, eyes wide in what could be terror, his body mostly limp but seized in tension.

"Right," Ryou looked at the green ring, seeing the blue one next to it. "No time for pleasantries." He cleared his throat and hopped in, hauling Lotor onto his shoulder. "Sgnir, tropelet su ot ytefas!"

The rings seemed to crack-or maybe he was imagining things. He could barely feel himself-his body and mind as a singular being-within this place. Still, colors glowed and entered his vision as a distant boom sounded.

......

......

......

............

............

............

Drifting.

Directionless.

Weightless.

Empty.

Cold.

But warm.

Floating.

Floating.

Floating.

Falling?

Maybe?

Slowly.

Gently.

No.

Steady now.

Solid ground underneath him.

Solid but not truly...?

Wet.

Water?

Calm.

Ryou twitched and opened his eyes, seeing white...

Fluffy...

Clouds?

"Ryou Shirogane of Earth." A voice, familiar, vaguely so, called to him.

He groaned in response, tired and heavy.

"Alive." He raised his hand. It took him a moment to realize he didn't have any of the rings on it. He looked and saw that his other hand was free of rings as well.

Now filled with confused adrenaline, Ryou managed to pull himself up, seeing a vast landscape, sky and ground mirrored, colored with soft blues and pinks.

Besides him was Lotor, unconscious but looking somewhat better, though still a bit worse for wear.

The giant robot he was in was also present, almost fully submerged in the ground-or water? Its head was visible, along with some of its shoulder and torso. It looked.... tired, if Ryou could put give it a word.

Around them were multiple balls of light, about five from what he could see, and one came closer.

"You made a great sacrifice." The light ball said in a feminine voice.

"Not dead!" Ryou insisted. "I don't see Death here!"

The balls of light were silent.

"But if you see her can you tell her I said hi?" He coughed.

"We acknowledge your efforts taken to protect life." The feminine voiced one continued.

Ryou sighed and looked to Lotor. "Yeah. Yeah I'll take that." He sat back, groaning. "Do I get a cookie or something? I'm starving."

The ball of light seemed to sigh.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *rises from my goblin hoard where I am working on many other WIPs* Enjoy! *crawls back into the depths of WIP hell*

Ryou felt an animosity coming from most of the orbs, but he didn't let it bother him. His methods had worked and that is what mattered.

"And what about him?" He gestured to Lotor, still unconscious but rousing as time went on. "He's gonna be on trial for crimes against the universe, right?"

"He has failed his trial to learn our ways." Another light, one with a male voice, answered. "You need not worry about him."

That seemed incredibly suspicious.

"Bullshit." Ryou spat with doubt and disgust.

"Excuse you?" A third orb said.

"B. U. L. L. S. H. I. T." Ryou spelled out. "Bull. Shit. I was sent to fix his mess right?" He looked to Lotor, meeting the hazy eyes of the Galra's emperor. "I told you when I got this ring that I was doing this my way and what do you do? You make me your gofer!"

"You were the best and-" the feminine voice sighed again. "Only choice. The Paladins are not yet as experienced with wielding even a fragment of our power."

"Allura!" Lotor shot up with quickness. "Wh-where-!?" He looked around, seeing where he was and doing a double take at Ryou. "Oh great, one of my mother's projects."

"Excuse you," Ryou growled, feeling the bubbling anger in his core. "I wasn't grown in a test tube."

"Children." The masculine voiced orb said sternly. "The intricacies of our ways are sealed away for the safety of all life. Lotor has failed his trial and he dares to show his face here again-"

"And another thing!" Ryou interrupted, much to the collective annoyance and anger of the orbs. "Safety of all life? Oh yeah. Real stellar plan here. Protect all life except for the ones that don't live up to your standards."

"Are you deaf?" The masculine orb approached Ryou, getting in his face, making him squint ever so slightly. "He has failed the trial. He has proven that the only life he cherishes is his own. That selfish creature shall be cast out and barred from our realm!"

"Oh really?" Ryou glared at the orb. "Selfish killers like him and me aren't welcomed to your little exclusive club of sentient flashlights?"

"You are not like him-" Another orb tried to say.

"I've killed people!" Ryou shouted, an inhuman growl in the deepest depths of his voice. "I've killed dozens with my bare hands and enjoyed it!" He looked at the other orbs. "Yet I'm here aren't I? You decided that a selfish and hateful thing like me was good enough to wield this oh so special power of yours. So why not-!"

"ENOUGH!" The feminine voiced orb snapped and the realm reacted accordingly, becoming a bright and harsh red filled with heat that burned with every breath.

The pain hit Ryou but he merely flinched at it, unlike Lotor's full body recoil. After a moment, the realm returned to its calm and serene state.

"You wish to protect this life." The feminine voiced orb didn't ask Ryou.

"Yes." Ryou replied. "Against all better judgement and knowing it would make someone very close to me extremely upset, I don't wish death on him. He should pay for what he's done but be given the chance to do better."

The masculine voiced orb scoffed. "Do better? You and that half-breed are a blight-!"

"It shall be done." The feminine voiced orb said.

The other orbs murmured in confusion.

"Are you serious?" The masculine voiced orb went to the other.

"Yes." The feminine voiced orb seemed to turn to Lotor. "His mind is clouded and unsure. These insecurities dull his light but he does not possess true darkness. This is what you see in him, yes?" It seemed to look to Ryou, who nodded.

Lotor seemed to look up at that, even turning to Ryou with a hopefully desperate look in his eyes.

"You shall stay and learn our ways," the orb continued. "One one condition."

"Anything." Lotor said.

Bad wording, Ryou thought but let him go. He knew just how desperate one could be when at their absolute lowest.

"You must never use our power to take the life of another." The orb said sternly, like a mother instructing her child. "No matter what your intentions may be."

Lotor froze and looked to Ryou again, as if for approval or wordless advice, which Ryou gave in the form of a nod. "Of course," Lotor bowed his head.

"Ryou Shirogane," the orb turned to him. "Your gofer duties, as you would be so inclined to say, are not yet over." From within the orb, a rainbow of lights emerged and performed a familiar little dance. "Gather your allies and prepare for battle. Your strength, the absolute truth of the universe that you have reminded us of and that which we have forgotten, will come from others.

The lights, including a white light, turned into rings and circled around Ryou.

"Missed you guys too," Ryou smiled and the rings returned to their previous positions, disappearing but not truly gone when the white ring returned to its place as well. "So where you shipping me off to this time?"

"I believe you said you wanted to do things your way." The orb said in a rather sarcastic but polite tone.

"Ahh," Ryou smiled and shot some finger guns. "Good one." He turned to Lotor, still looking pathetic as he bent the knee to the orbs. "Good luck. And by the way, Romelle's gonna deck you for what you did to her brother."

Lotor raised his head to give Ryou a confused look. "What?"

"Do not fear, child." The feminine voiced orb said gently. "You will be home soon."

Light filled the realm and Ryou felt himself being lifted off the ground.

......

............

Shiro tapped his fingers impatiently, waiting and wondering if it took this long for the Watchtower's airlock to shut. It never took this long, has it? He thought. There was no chance that there could have been a malfunction in some way, shape, or form. Unless-

"Easy Taks," Dick put a hand on his shoulder, pulling him out of his spiraling thoughts. "Don't give yourself a heart attack."

"I'm worried Dick." Shiro sighed.

"I know, I know." The elder son assured him. "Believe me, I was this close to giving Ryou a good walloping when he woke up in the Javelin."

That eased Shiro's nerves a bit, though they tensed again when the bay doors opened.

An Altean ship was there, and exiting one by one was the team and family he loved. They looked a bit older but at the same time still so young. A couple of inches in height, broader shoulders here and there, but they each had the same bright eyed smile as they saw him.

"SHIRO!" Almost all of them jumped on him, showering him with tears of relief and tight bear hugs.

All except one.

Well, three to be exact, but he was sure the Galra woman and the Altean that looked like Allura weren't going to join the dogpile.

"Keith?" Shiro could see that something was very clearly wrong, and it was not just the new scar on his cheek. Keith had never ever looked so defeated and small, even when Shiro took him under his wing.

"I-" Keith began to say, choking on his words. "I can't-"

Pulling away from the others, Shiro tried to approach Keith as gently as he could. He braced himself when Keith looked up with tears in his eyes.

"I can't keep losing you-" Keith shook in Shiro's arms. "If it's not one it's the other and-" he hiccuped.

Shiro held Keith close and tight, the only thing he knew to do at times like this. "I'm here." Unfortunately, he didn't know what else to say that wouldn't make him start crying too. Ryou was gone, somewhere alone in the vastness of space he hated so much, and Shiro didn't know how to comfort himself at that thought, let alone how to ease Keith's feelings.

The Allura-look-alike seemed to look at Shiro oddly, as if she was sizing him up or trying to think if they've met somewhere before. If they had, Shiro wouldn't know, amnesia and all.

"And-" Shiro didn't let go of Keith but turned to look at the two bystanders. "You two would be-?"

"Krolia." The Galra woman said. "Keith's mother." She came in for a handshake though it seems motherly instinct took over as she put a hand on Keith's shoulder.

The other one had her arms crossed and was leaning against the ship, seemingly content with being on the side lines and away from the crowd. She did notice Shiro's staring and huffed a bit.

"Romelle." She introduced herself and looked away.

"Oh!" Hunk said excitedly, getting everyone's attention. "She's Ryou's-" he paused. "Um, girlfriend?"

Shiro's eyebrows shot right up at that.

"Whoa whoa whoa whoa," Dick put up his hands as if to say time-out. "You serious?"

"Dick," Keith seemed to gather up his composure as he wiped his eyes and sniffled. "It's Ryou. Don't question it."

"Yeah but she's been really vague and weird about it." Pidge added, her own eyes narrowed as she looked to Romelle.

Romelle rolled her eyes at that, clicking her tongue.

"I'm betting on girlfriend." Lance flashed a cocky smile.

"Let's just-" Keith groaned and pinched the bridge of his nose, covertly wiping away some more tears from his eyes. "Go see the Justice League."

"Oh yeah about that-" Lance smiled and cleared his throat, taking in a deep breath.

"Nope," Hunk covered Lance's mouth.

Lance groaned in annoyance.

Shiro smiled and sighed, feeling that nothing might have really changed. Though as Allura pulled out a crypod with an unconscious Galra-made clone, he knew there was quite a number of headaches in his future.

After some more introductions were made, where Romelle once again vaguely said she and Ryou were in contact in the past, Shiro revealed the one secret he had been keeping from the Paladins, minus Keith of course, tthat he was the adopted son of Batman and all of his siblings were also the Bat's infamous crew of caped crusaders. And after calming down the fallout of that, namely Lance and Pidge asking about a hundred questions each about Batman's private life as Bruce Wayne and the near infinite number of gadgets that Batman always seemed to have on hand, the two teams were finally able to get down to business and began the ever lengthy strategy meeting.

"The Green Lanterns have been able to set up defense lines around the borders of the Galra Empire," Batman showed a star chart showing the divide between the Empire, the Green Lantern's reach, and unclaimed parts of space.

"We recently liberated multiple areas from Galra rule," Allura added, typing a few things. "The Empire now has one third less of the universe." With her input, the hologram changed.

"The other two thirds have descended into a free for all," John Stewart also made some inputs and the hologram showed some splintering in the Empire colored areas. "We intercepted their signals and without this Lotor guy, everyone's looking to get to the throne and more than willing to leave a trail of bodies to get there."

"We left Lotor in the rift," Allura looked down and stiffened a bit, her usually bright eyes darker now. "He shouldn't be a problem for now."

"Leaving them to duke it out will be dangerous to anyone caught in the crossfire." Shiro added, gently patting Allura's shoulder in a small attempt to comfort her. "It would be best if we try to settle the power vacuum issue as quickly as possible."

"We received word from a new recruit that a guy named Sendak is leading the largest army," Hal showed an image of Sendak, who seemed to have grown out his... fur? Hair? "He calls it the Fire of Purification."

Shiro tensed up but feeling Dick's hand on his arm helped keep him steady.

"And Ryou?" Keith asked, his voice small.

The Green Lanterns looked at each other.

"Last we heard, he was rushing off somewhere." John said. "Probably to deal with whatever Operation Kuron is."

Keith sighed, pinching his eyes again as they gained a small teary shine.

"We caught him on our way to the Castle." Krolia explained, looking to Batman. "When we left, he was still at the bunker. Though when his white ring appeared and exploded, we-" she looked to her son and frowned. "We're trying not to think of the worst."

"A white ring?" Hal asked. The Green Lanterns were not strangers to the white power rings but it may have been the fact that Ryou, a walking tornado of disaster, had one that surprised them.

"Yeah." Hunk nodded, pulling out the crystal and tossing it to Hal.

Hal ran a quick scan on the crystal. "Whoa." His eyes widened a bit.

"What is it?" Flash asked.

"There's a lot of energy in this little thing," Hal handed it back gently to Hunk. "Might want to keep it somewhere safe."

"Speaking of things that need to be safe," Coran looked to Romelle. "Is there any place on Earth where we can put this one? We're not entirely sure of her intentions."

Romelle shot a scowl at Coran, growling a bit.

"The Amazons will be happy to welcome a sister from the stars," Wonder Woman smiled and looked to Romelle, who seemed to loosen up at her words.

"That sounds nice." Romelle sighed, even cracking a small hint of a smile.

Shiro took another more careful look at Romelle and wondered just what in the nine hells Ryou was up to since he last saw him.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel I should write a little mini-series of what went on on Shiro's end but I am so deep into like three other ideas I don't know where to start.

Not even a month had gone by and Sendak had swung by to either enslave Earth or destroy it, and the Paladins were not looking to see what exactly he wanted, which turned out to be pretty straight forward when he showed up with the entirety of his forces following right behind him, all ready to do what they do best.

The Green Lanterns took care of most of the forces, keeping the bulk of of the Fire of Purification held up at Oa where the Green Lantern Corps actually managed to do their job proper. A few, however, had managed to slip by and get closer to Earth, including Sendak.

It was a fierce and tiring battle, perhaps one of the most dire fights Shiro had ever fought if he had to somehow list them all, but Sendak went down for good and Shiro stood above him with the black bayard in hand. Without their leader, the initial spark of union and some degree of order, the rest of the Fire died down. Part of them fled back with their tails between their legs, others were imprisoned and awaited trial and Shiro hoped the Guardians would actually do something about the Galra now.

The thing that came after baffled everyone.

A robeast landed in the desert near the Galaxy Garrison just after Sendak went down. The Paladins rushed to their Lions if they weren't there already, despite much protest from the Justice League, especially Batman when it came to Shiro and Keith, who were already heavily battered and bruised.

They were barely able to form Voltron, running on smoke at this point but dammit were they going to make it count, fully trusting the League to be right behind them.

And then...

Sincline appeared.

It was overflowing with a white energy and fought the robeast, obviously holding back for some reason despite already appearing to be falling apart with every movement.

The roboeast had the upper hand but the Paladins were able to swoop in and deal the final blow as Sincline broke apart, the white enrgy holding it together proving too much for it.

When the dust cleared, the Justice League and the Paladins found Lotor in a white, gray, and black version of his usual armor looking upon his crumbling creation with mourning.

"I'm sorry Sincline," he whispered to it, his voice low and as broken as his dear Sincline. "I should have been a better friend to you."

Shiro held back an incredibly angered Allura as Lotor said his goodbyes, the setting sun providing a fitting atmosphere.

Though this did not stop Shiro from laying it thick during the interrogation.

"I swear I don't know where he is." Lotor, wide eyed, pleaded, hands and feet cuffed.

"Lotor," Shiro sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. "We can do this the easy way or the hard way. Last we heard Ryou had a white ring just like the one you have on your finger. Can you at least contact him?"

"I tried!" Lotor cried and leaned back with a sigh. "For two movements I have been trying to get into contact with him to-" he paused and looked down.

"To what?" Keith, glaring, more or less asked while growling.

"Give him my gratitude." Lotor answered with a low and quiet voice. "He saved me from heavens know what the masters of Oriande were going to do to me. He vouched for my redemption when I had done nothing to deserve it."

Shiro and Keith shared a look and left Lotor in the interrogation room. When the door closed behind them, Shiro let out a long aggravated sigh.

"Didn't go too well I'm assuming." Jiro, the clone with snow white hair and a new prosthetic arm that Keith fought almost to the death and brought back from space, raised an eyebrow at them as he approached the two, followed by Robin.

"Not unless we can pick apart his brain like a computer." Keith sighed as well, scratching the back of his head.

"Let me take a crack at him. I'll make him spill," Robin smirked a bit, cracking his knuckles.

"Easy there little demon," Shiro looked at Robin sternly. "We don't know what's Lotor's playing at now, and he's one of our only leads on where Ryou is."

"Which reminds me," Keith looked at Jiro and Robin. "What about Romelle?"

Jiro shook his head. "Her lips are sealed. She seems right at home with the Amazons though."

Shiro sighed again. "Ryou you're officially the biggest headache in the universe."

Robin looked in the two-way glass, observing Lotor and scowling a bit.

"So our options are the snake who betrayed us once and a fox who won't even tell us the time of day." Jiro also scratched the back of his head while weighing the options.

"Fox isn't what I'd describe her as," Shiro sighed. "But I'm not in the right mindset to argue right now."

"Right." Keith nodded. "I'll ask Green Arrow to put Lotor back in his cell."

"I'll do it." Jiro said as he began to move towards the door.

"No!" Shiro and Keith both stopped him.

Jiro looked down at that.

"We-" Keith paused. "We can't risk y-" he waffled some more. "Haggar's influence."

"I understand." Jiro sighed. "I'll just head back to the manor then."

"Pennyworth is always grateful for an extra helping hand." Robin patted Jiro's arm as they took their leave, Keith and Shiro going in different directions.

In the Watchtower meeting room, alone with the table and chairs and the soft beeping of monitors, Shiro looked down at Earth and sighed.

"Long day?" Batman, in true Bat fashion, suddenly appeared behind him. No hint of sarcasm or any other such teasing were evident in his voice. Just a father concerned for his son.

"Is this how you feel all the time?" Shiro looked to him, almost unaware of the pleading look in his eyes.

Batman looked at Shiro before looking back at the Earth. "It's a bit heavier some days."

True, Shiro could remember seeing Batman slumped in the chair in front of the Batcomputer with his head in his hands. When that happens, he would always hug just a little tighter and a little longer than he usually does, and they quickly learned that sometimes, it was best to leave it at that. The best way to handle those days were to keep a smile and hug back, slipping in some encouraging words every now and then.

"No word from the GLs?" Shiro asked, rubbing the back of his neck.

"His last known location coincides with Krolia's report. A bunker in the middle of a forest on a secluded planet." Batman answered a bit coldly. "Any attempts to find his current whereabouts all lead to a dead end. It's possible he's using the indigo ring's ability to avoid detection."

Shiro sighed. He was sure Ryou would be on Earth but then again, he was a bit impulsive, especially when he's desperate. Though he never thought that Ryou would go into space alone. Actually, Shiro's eyes narrowed a bit, he did think that. It was the most unlikely thing that Ryou would do but at the same time it made perfect sense. Ryou, spontaneous as he is, would definitely go to space if he felt he absolutely had to.

"He's coming back." Batman put a hand on Shiro's shoulder, sensing his son's growing frustrations. "He's a fighter. Just like you."

Shiro smiled at that, feeling those frustrations melt away ever so slightly. "We did learn from the best."

"And you two are better than the best." Batman smiled back.

Back at the manor, things were as lively as ever. Jason, Keith, and Kolivan were looking over some weapons recovered from the Fire of Purification. Meanwhile, Tim and Krolia were at the Batcomputer going over some coding that may or may not have been swiped from Jiro while he was unconscious. Dick, strangely, was nowhere to be seen.

"Where's Dick?" Shiro asked as he hovered over Tim's shoulder, recognizing the part in the coding that should have held the secret coordinates.

"Upstairs checking in on the other Paladins." Krolia answered without looking at Shiro, writing some notes here and there.

"Mostly just making sure they aren't blabbing about our secret identities." Tim added. "Allura says hi by the way."

Ah, right. Shiro remembered that the Alteans had gone with Superman to the Fortress of Solitude. "Nice to know they're getting along with Clark."

"So," Tim paused. "Who is Romelle exactly?"

Shiro and Keith both groaned.

"You knew her longer," Shiro looked to Keith.

"Yeah but she was doing a pretty bad job at pretending to be a damsel in distress," Keith argued with a scowl. "After she dropped the act, she clammed up."

"Ten bucks on girlfriend," Jason declared as he picked up one of the many laser guns, admiring it with a certain look in his eye.

"Ten bucks on ex-girlfriend." Tim shot a finger gun at Jason. "You know him."

"Well prepare to lose ten bucks Timbo," Jason aimed at one of the targets near the ceiling.

"Both of you are dumb," Keith sighed.

"But you aren't denying either of our claims," Tim continued the argument. "What about you Taks?"

"Hm?" Shiro looked at both of them.

"What's your bet?" Jason clarified as he shot at the target, hitting right on the bulls-eye.

"Oh," Shiro held his chin, part of him seriously considering the possibilities and the other part wondering why he took this matter seriously. "Hard to say. Kolivan? Krolia?"

The two Blades shared a look and Krolia smiled knowingly. "I'm not getting involved but let's just say I have a pretty strong theory."

Shiro raised an eyebrow but left it at that. "I'm heading upstairs. Don't burn anything Jay."

"No promises." Jason shot at the target again.

Upstairs, Shiro found himself wandering the manor for nostalgia's sake. It was a new habit, and there were concerns that he might not truly believe he was home. And in a way, they were right.

He went over even the tiniest details, cataloging new dents and scrapes as he found them and making some theories on how they appeared. His favorite new mystery was the boot-print on the wall that looked like one of Jason's but was made with a much smaller foot.

At the main entrance he heard two distinct voices and saw the door was open, with Kate in front of it. Shiro found himself hiding and peeking around the corner.

"I know he's here!" It was Adam.

"And I'm telling you he doesn't want to see you." Kate was holding steady. "Look, we can do this the easy way or the hard way, and trust me, you won't like the hard way."

"Kate, please. I need to-" he sighed. "I need to make up for how I left."

"Oh really?" Kate scoffed a bit. "Let me hear that little speech you prepared. Tell me exactly just how you plan on winning him back."

"Ugh, Kate, I don't want to-" Adam was getting frustrated. He recognized that tone, it was almost exactly the way he spoke before...

"Kate." Shiro announced himself, stepping out from behind the corner, seeing them both surprised.

"Taka," Kate cleared her throat, keeping her arm firm, blocking Adam. "You're up early."

"It's noon." Shiro looked to Adam and saw how disheveled he look, five o'clock shadow and all. "I was looking for Dick, you've seen him anywhere?"

"Probably in his room. You know models." Kate half faked a smirk.

"Takashi-" Adam began to say.

Shiro held up his hand. "It's..." he took a deep breath. "Nice to see you." He continued on his way, trying to pretend he didn't see Adam's wide eyed reaction.

Now with more focus, or more so a drive to be anywhere but in the same room as Adam for now, he walked up to his older brother's room and knocked.

No response at first but he heard footsteps.

Dick answered smiling for a split second before he saw Shiro's expression and grew worried. "Taks? What's wrong?"

"Nothing, nothing." Shiro cleared his throat. "Definitely didn't just see Adam after almost two years of space, hell, and space hell."

Dick raised an eyebrow. "Right. You needed something?"

"It's Romelle, have you talked to her?" Shiro blurted out.

"Yeah, why?" Dick shrugged. "Is it the bet?"

"It's-" Shiro began to explain before realizing what Dick said. "Yeah, I want to snip that right at the bud."

"Oh," Dick snapped his fingers. "Bad time to mention that I'm running that bet right?"

Shiro sighed, much to Dick's amusement. "It's either this or ask Diana. I mean, a part of me wants to let it be-"

"That's the normal half." Dick interrupted, a smirk on his lips.

"But another part wants answers."

"That would the nosy bat half." Dick nodded. "I say we let it be. It's probably in our best interest. She's not exactly a good liar but she knows what not to say."

"Right," Shiro nodded. "It's probably just the over-protectiveness talking."

"Not when we found an Altean in that Robeast," Dick sighed.

"There's that too." Shiro nodded. "Feels like Haggar's doing."

"Which leads us back to Jiro," Dick crossed his arms. "We can't keep him hidden forever Taka. He's got your wander lust and we all know how bad that case of cabin fever gets."

Shiro hung his head a bit. "I know."


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *still thinks about side fic where we see Shiro's POV of Light Catcher or something*.... Ah right! Enjoy!

Shiro looked over to Jiro, the two of them sitting on opposite sides of the Javelin, not really looking at each other, understandable considering the recent circumstances. Up front, Batman and Lotor were piloting, both silent.

Well, Batman was piloting the Javelin, unofficially the leader of this mission. Lotor was told to stay in Batman's reach, should anything happen, and the former Emperor was more than willing to oblige.

There was little chance that Ryou might still be there, another lonesome bunker in the middle of untouched alien wilderness, but it was the first lead they've had in a long time and Shiro was not going to let it slip through his fingers.

And in true Overprotective Father fashion, Batman declared he'd take point on this expedition once Jiro stated he wanted to tag along with Shiro. Lotor was added to see if he could track Ryou's next location via the white rings, though there was an unspoken agreement that it may not work now when it hadn't before.

In the mean time, while they were heading to the isolated planet in the middle of nowhere space in the outskirts of what used to be the Galra Empire, Shiro was helping out the rest of the Paladins as they handled another situation.

"It's literally hell down here!" Lance whined.

"Is time distorted there?" Shiro asked, a little smirk on his face. "Because it's not hell if you think it's only been an hour and it turns out to be three months."

"Why do you know that?" Pidge, between some panting, asked.

"The life of a Bat is one that allows you to know many things," Hunk, also seemingly out of breath despite all of the training, answered.

"Like nuclear launch codes." Keith added.

"I can't tell if you're joking or not and it's scaring me," Lance said worriedly. "I don't know if I like Bat Keith."

"Get used to it." Keith sounded as though he was smirking.

"Keith be nice," Shiro said with a small sigh. "Try to stay hydrated, alright?"

"Because the last thing we need is a tiny raisin version of Pidge," Hunk said before yelping a bit, surely in response to Pidge hitting him.

Smiling but shaking his head, Shiro turned to see Jiro looking expectantly at him before quickly looking away, still glancing back like a puppy. He turned to see Lotor also taking nervous glances at him.

"Stay safe Shiro," Allura said, snapping Shiro out of his thoughts.

"Hm? Oh, yeah. You too." Shiro responded, smiling.

The call was cut and the Javelin fell into silence again.

"You put a lot of trust in them." Batman noted, eyes staying on the invisible space road ahead of them.

"Yeah," Shiro smiled. "They're a dedicated bunch. We were-" he remembered how they were when they first fought as a team, both the first fight when they formed Voltron and the food fight with Allura and Coran. "Out of our element, for the most part, but we pulled through."

"Not without some strong-arming from Allura." Jiro awkwardly added with a crooked smile.

"Oh man does Allura not hold back." Shiro agreed, tossing a smile back at the awkward little clone.

"No wonder she could pilot Black like that," Jiro, seeing the smile on his look-alike's face, now seemed a bit more confident.

"She's-" Lotor also began to say, pausing when they looked at him in almost complete and unnerving unison. "Strong."

Jiro and Shiro looked at each other and both huffed a smile.

"She did throw me across a room." Shiro shrugged, trying not to dwell on the rest of that particular memory.

"One handed." Jiro corrected, probably doing the same.

"Yep." Shiro nodded.

Batman made one of his signature grunts, which Shiro knew to be one of contentment.

Silence again as the joyful atmosphere echoed and faded away.

It was another hour or so before they tried to talk again, this time with a word game but it was another round of odd pauses while trying to explain the rules and whether or not the Galra alphabet would count in the game.

"We're here." Batman interrupted them, pointing out the planet in view.

Lotor's ring glowed for a second, and seemed disturbed by whatever it told him. "Something's down there." He said with a low concern.

"Well duh," Jiro said, raising an eyebrow as if to emphasize the obvious. "It could be Ryou."

"I know that," Lotor argued, eyes narrowing if they were not rolling. "But something else is down there," he tried to explain. "Something that is emitting an unsettling and familiar power."

They landed near a structure that vaguely resembled a building but not built with metal, instead it seemingly had been molded out of the surrounding plant life. According to the radar, this was where Ryou was supposed to be, or rather his newest last known location.

"Lotor, follow our lead." Batman began planning as they exited the Javelin. "Takashi, Jiro, we go in diplomatically. Keep on alert for anything and everything. We don't want any unnecessary trouble."

"First Date Protocol, got it." Jiro nodded, earning an odd but agreeing look from Shiro, surprised to hear that dumb little name again after so long.

Batman nodded and knocked on what might be the front door. A few seconds went by and Shiro was sure that Batman was already thinking of other ways to get in when the door opened, yet no one was standing there.

Then they looked down and saw a little robot, which Shiro could only liken to a small version of Beezer or a roomba with a dome on it, happily beeping as its singular camera eye seemed to get a good look at them.

"Hello." Batman nodded to it, most likely already analyzing it.

The little robot beeped again and jittered, spinning and heading inside a few feet before looking back to them.

"Stay alert?" Lotor asked.

"Stay alert." Batman answered as he stepped inside, followed by Lotor and Jiro.

"Pardon for the intrusion," Shiro muttered as he entered last, taking a quick glance outside to see if there were anything following, though thankfully there were none as far as he could tell.

Inside, they were led down long hallways, some opening up to large rooms that stored chemicals, others narrow and illuminated by small fungi. Shiro peeked into one of the smaller rooms, only to find them either empty or recovering from some type of burn damage. Occasionally, other little robots crossed their paths and would beep as they passed by. One even had a half-eaten giant raspberry-like fruit that Jiro accepted after seeing it beep sadly when he had initially rejected it.

"Definitely Ryou's handiwork." Jiro whispered to Shiro, munching on the alien fruit.

"Question is, is he here?" Shiro whispered back, a bit envious but finding a small opening to sneak in a bite when Jiro wasn't looking.

They finally came up what looked like a more well used lab room, judging by the scattered materials and the fact that in this room someone was currently working.

Lotor squinted at them, all of their eyes adjusting to the change in light, just as Shiro himself noticed the pointed ears. "An Altean?"

Sure enough, the individual turned around, revealing the bright eyes and cheek markings of an Altean. They had orange hair like Coran, though in a lighter shade, a dark complexion, sharp green eyes with yellow pupils, and equally sharp yellow markings. They had a dark lab coat-styled attire, and seemed half exasperated until they laid their eyes on Shiro.

"Well well well," they smiled sinisterly, their voice a low laughing hiss. "Guests."

"I don't like this." Jiro mumbled under his breath to Shiro, stepping back. "It feels like-"

"I know." Shiro put his hand on Jiro's shoulder, feeling the unseen eyes of Haggar on him.

"Not introducing yourselves?" The Altean tilted their head. "Just like him, rude." They turned back to their work, flashing a little smirk.

"You are our host," Batman stepped forward, eyes looking at the notes and equations. "If anything, you're the one being rude."

The Altean laughed, no-cackled lowly. "Did he not mention me?"

"He?" Jiro asked, trying not to let his voice waver.

"The one you're looking for of course." The Altean said, their hands working on something that they couldn't see. "Though you just missed him if you were looking to converse with him."

Shiro hissed and swore under his breath.

"He'll be back." The Altean said dryly, almost in boredom. "He has to replenish a certain resource that I'm working with," a single hand, with a long spider-like finger, pointed to an archway on the adjacent wall.

"Where is he?" Shiro stepped forward, feeling a growl bubbling in his throat as Batman held out his arm ever so slightly.

"Here, but not entirely." The Altean replied calmly. "Just on the other side, in the other reality. Said he wanted to check on some friends." They rearranged a few holographic screens, revealing more equations and diagrams. "Last time he was there he took a few quintents to come back." They tapped away on their computer.

Shiro was about to step forward again when Jiro held him back this time, shaking his head.

"Varice," Lotor instead took that extra step. "Varice Gedre Carimon, the fraud of Altea who drove my mother to madness." He scowled at the Altean.

"Hmph," Varice scoffed, their shoulders shaking a bit with what can only be assumed to be laughter. "And yet who was it that tore through the incredibly delicate and fragile fabric of reality and destroyed their own homeworld?" They looked at Lotor with a smirk.

Lotor growled and was held back by Batman.

"Are you not endangering yourself as well?" Lotor continued, his voice a hiss and his eyes narrowing even more. "If your claims of safely travelling to other realities is true, of course."

"Oh?" Varice was on the verge of cackling again. "You haven't figured it out? I was sure being the son of the great genius Honerva-"

Lotor thrust his hand out, stopped from fully lunging by Batman, and a white blade of light had stopped merely one hair away from Varice's neck. With great effort, Lotor dispelled the construct and stepped back, holding the offending appendage closer to his chest now.

"Varice," Batman said, now the only thing standing between three powerhouses of rising anger and the enigma who held their only clue to Ryou. "You said it took Ryou a few quintents to come back."

"I believe in your language, it would be called a day." Varice didn't seem at all concerned that they could have just died, and if they did hold concern they were excellent at hiding it. "I wouldn't hold my breath waiting. He often leaves at a moment's notice, purely at his own discretion."

"You sure he's not holed up somewhere working on one of those robots running around?" Jiro raised an eyebrow.

"The R2s?" Varice looked at him. "He created them to provide, in his words, companionship when he's away. They've proven helpful, if annoying at times. But no, he's not hiding like the little vermin he is."

"Yep, that's Ryou." Shiro sighed, taking that insult to heart, and looked around again, seeing a couple of digital pictures that also seemed to be made by a familiar hand. "Is he.."

Batman looked at him with concern, almost telling him to be careful with what he says next.

"Is he doing well?" Shiro asked.

Varice stopped typing.

"I don't trust her." Lotor hissed, turning away as if to keep himself calm. "She's a charlatan."

"Says the brat." Varice looked back to all of them with something of a tired expression. "He seemed driven, if that's what you're asking. Less erratic from when I first met him. Medically speaking he has been doing a lot better."

The four looked at each other, silently debating.

"Is there any chance we can stay and observe your work?" Batman had a certain tone in his voice that Shiro couldn't help but hold in a groan at.

"Hmm," Varice went back to typing. "Possibly. I have no need of test subjects though." She took a glance at Shiro and Jiro, who both shuddered at her gaze.

"Surely your research can benefit from a new perspective," Batman continued as he pulled up one of the screens and added a few of his own notes. "I did teach Ryou almost everything he knows."

"Almost everything?" Varice seemed amused as she looked at the addition.

"He had a rough starting point," Batman approached Varice, extending his now free hand. "I gave him the push he needed to refine his talents and expand on them."

Varice looked at Batman up and down, raising an eyebrow before accepting Batman's handshake.

"I was saving this for him when he got back, but I believe the prince here would be of great use now." Varice narrowed her eyes at him.

"I did win the Kraal Zera." Lotor muttered.

"And what a wonderful reign you had, dearest little emperor." Varice tapped on her computer again, bringing up an image of a planet.

Lotor's eyes widened at it. It took a moment for the Shiroganes to realize what it was but when they did it was clear why Lotor had such a reaction.

"I believe he gets the obsessive need to save everyone from you, Batman," Varice smiled that wicked smile again. "He had me look for Altean energy after hearing about a secret colony," she looked at Lotor again. "And this is what I found. It has the highest concentration of Altean life, though it's far from being the only sign of my-" she paused. "People's whereabouts."

"He wants to save them." Batman didn't ask, also noticing the look on Lotor's face.

"Again, to quote him, it would be for her sake." Varice replied. "Such an emotional thing he is."

Shiro looked at the image, his thoughts once again trailing back to Romelle and whatever little secret she was hiding.

"Oh fun. A planet sized-" Jiro began to say when Shiro covered his mouth.

"Don't. Just-" Shiro sighed, now seeing how bad dark humor can look from the outside. "Don't."


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Time to turn it up a notch! *breaks dial* Oops.......

"Hmm..." Shiro looked at the little roomba quizzically, trying to reach into his twin's mind and guess what system he used to name them. "R2-....." he thought long and hard, despite the Black Lion questioning him. "Psy."

The roomba beeped happily and Shiro fist bumped in victory. There was little else to do at the facility, besides cleaning, organizing, and taking in the natural beauty of the world, as Varice went on and on about the work she and Ryou had been up to.

"Hey," Jiro knocked on the door way and entered. "Lotor said he found something."

Shiro took in a sharp breath before looking back at R2-Psy. "I'll be back."

Jiro led Shiro to another one of Varice's labs, where Lotor was assigned archival duty, much to his chagrin. At the very least, none of them had to witness any more of Batman's sweet talking, a tactic Shiro wished he'd stop using on any female adversary they encountered.

Lotor seemed to be unnerved, looking at the blank monitor and twisting the white ring. "Ah, there you are." He seemed a bit relieved when Shiro appeared.

"What's up?" Shiro looked at the monitor, seeing a single folder had been opened and within that folder there were video files.

"I believe I found evidence of your-" he raised an eyebrow, the sound hissing out of his mouth with uncertainty. "Twin's being here." Obviously that word was still foreign for Lotor's vocabulary but he was making an effort.

Shiro's eyebrows shot up to his hairline as he looked back to the monitor. He noticed that the video files were indeed named with Ryou's usual nonsense, a welcomed sight to see and hopefully more so as he pulled up the first video, titled Intruder Alert, and it began to play.

The first thing on screen was a pair of feet wearing dirty boots. The feet walked up to one of the roombas sitting patiently, the little green light flashing at a steady pace.

"R2-Alpha," Ryou's voice said calmly, earning a beep of recognition as the green light stayed on, almost like a dog perking its ears up. "Intruder alert."

The roomba's light turned red and its beep became a lower tone. It produced a blade from its front, much to Ryou's amused giggling, which became panicked as R2-Alpha turned its aim to him.

Shiro smiled at that. Truly, if Ryou was given an inch he'd go a light year.

The next video, which Shiro saw was called Best Thing Ever, began with a different view. Ryou's face, smiling and proud, as he stood with his back towards more roombas, roughly five or so.

"Can anybody," he began to sing in a familiar and sweet, if overdone, tone. "Find me," he took glances at the roombas behind them, their lights green and steady. "Somebody to-"

He pointed behind him and the roombas, albeit a little off-beat, replied with low hums, which sounded like the last word of the lyrics he was singing. Again, he giggled.

Shiro remembered seeing similar videos on a channel of Steph's creation. During the year he was gone, Ryou became the star of a vlog where topics ranged from simple chatter to the intricate workings of an airplane and so much in between and beyond. The rest of the family often joined in, and as more videos went by, Shiro saw Ryou's mood lighten up bit by bit until he was the one behind the camera, narrating and trying, and often failing, to keep the camera steady.

The third video, called Cthulu Fuck Off, showed Ryou outside at night. Once again, Shiro could only guess as to what he was using for a camera and a flashlight.

"So here I am, minding my own business," Ryou's voice was as casual as ever, his feet barely making a sound as he walked. "And then I see this." He shined the light on some sort of squid like creature. "Gixhi is that you?" The mass of tentacles writhed. "How'd your old dusty butt get here? 'ey!"

Ah, the New Jersey accent. Always a treat. The twins could never really help if it they slipped in other languages or mannerisms.

"I'm talkin' here!" The video seemingly demanded Shiro's attention now as the camera turned to face Ryou, and Shiro could see it must have been a recent, seeing how Ryou was wearing a white jacket with the same emblem as Lotor's new-ish set of armor. "Anyways, I think I'm bringing space calamari back home." He flashed a thumbs up and the video ended.

The fourth video, a bit enigmatically titled To You, began with Ryou sitting at a desk, dressed in his White Lantern getup.

"To whom it may concern-" Ryou began to say only to pause, breathe a heavy sigh, and pinch the bridge of his nose. "I-no. Nope. That's not right."

A flash of static, now Ryou was wearing his more casual clothes, no rings of any color anywhere to be seen.

"GOOOOD MOOOORRNN-NOPE!" Ryou tried a more bombastic approach, complete with spinning in his chair. He was smiling but it was clearly his Paparazzi Smile. "That's not right either."

Static again and Shiro raised an eyebrow, wondering what he could be trying now.

The video started with the chair, empty, and Ryou jumped into it. "Good evening." He tried to say in a cool tone, only to hiss odd swear-substitutes under his breath.

Static.

This time, the video started with Ryou at the chair, in his White Lantern uniform again, hands together, tapping his index fingers in thought.

He clicked his tongue, similar to Damian's signature habit, and took a deep breath.

"Takashi." The way he looked right at what was supposed to be the camera made Shiro think it was a live video and Ryou was looking right into his eyes. "If you're watching this, it means I still haven't came home." He leaned forward, still holding his hands together. "It also means you found out about my... recent behavior." He looked guilty and sighed. "Takashi, listen to me, and really listen."

Shiro nodded. Always, he thought. He'd always be willing to listen.

"There's no excusing what I've done. Running off on my own, letting my emotions get the best of me, and all of the murders," Ryou had a faraway look of horror in his eyes. "Dear god all of the murders."

Shiro's eyes widened, knowing he had a similar habit.

"Anyways-" Ryou snapped out of it and cleared his throat. "I want you to know that it isn't your fault either. Everything that's happened to me I chose to do. Not you, not Dick, not Bruce, not anyone. It was all me. And I've been doing a lot of thinking, okay? I know you want to lecture me the second I get back but just know that I have been thinking."

Shiro shook his head with an exasperated smile. "Hope you didn't break your brain doin' it," he muttered.

"And one of the things that I've been thinking about is the rings and the order they came to me and what happened when I used them." Ryou continued, jittering a bit in his seat. "Green, for willpower. overcoming fear and doubt and every little voice that tells us we can't do something because we know we're so much better-" he paused again. "Because Bruce taught us to be better."

True, true, Shiro thought and nodded.

"And red..." again with that faraway look. "For anger. Anger that nearly killed me." He looked down. "I actually met Death, Taka. And let me tell you, she is...." Ryou shook his head. "Something else entirely. But what kept me alive was hope. And I've come to learn a lot of things since then, ya know? I've learned to care about the little guy again. You know, the street thugs that don't have anywhere to turn to? The soldiers who don't know any better?" He wiped his face. "And I-I've learned that this near obsessive desire to always look out for the people around me, can push them away." He tapped his fingers.

Shiro felt a sting in his heart. He wanted nothing more than to crawl inside that screen, or to drag Ryou out of it, and hug the daylights out of his brother.

"I've learned to face what I've become," Ryou continued. "And the things I was...more than willing to do." Ryou ran his hands through his hair. "But most of all I've-" he paused once more, fiddling with the white ring on his finger. "I've learned to...love again" He raised an eyebrow. "It sounds weird, I know, but I think I can explain." He looked wide-eyed. "I hope I can explain it." He shook his head again, even slapping his cheeks a bit to wake himself up.

Shiro squirmed in his seat, mentally urging Ryou to continue.

"I've learned to not fear love," Ryou looked down at his hands. "Because I know you and Dick and everyone back home will still-" again a pause. "Love and care about me. I've done horrible things, don't get me wrong, but I've come to learn that they don't make me a horrible person. And I think that's the most important thing I've learned from all of this. That love, true unconditional love, is what keeps us going."

Shiro felt something slide down his cheek.

"I think. Pretty sure." Ryou counted on his fingers. "Like, eighty to eighty five percent sure."

A noise came from off screen, a now familiar beep, and Ryou looked down in surprise.

"Oh, gotta go." He looped back up, somehow more tired than before. "Love you." He smiled and blew a kiss at the camera as he got up.

Static again and the video ended.

A few seconds of silence passed as Shiro sat still.

A hand placed itself on his shoulder, snapping him out of his stupor. Shiro looked up and saw Batman not so covertly wiping something from his face. "We need to go."

Shiro nodded in understanding. "Right."

Standing up, and quickly getting a copy of those video files, Shiro followed Batman, Jiro, and Lotor back to the Javelin. He looked back to Varice, who stood at the main entrance and looked out to the world outside.

"You're not coming?" Shiro asked her, seeing some sort of wanderlust in those eyes. "You can show Haggar a thing or two."

Varice's shoulder shook a little as she made a chuckling sort of sound. "Another time. Are you sure you want to leave so soon?"

Shiro looked at the Javelin, remembering something Keith told him a little while ago, and looked back at Varice.

"What's another day?" Shiro shrugged, feeling his heart grow heavy, and closed the Javelin door behind him.

Earth, along with the entire universe, needed Voltron right now, and it would be a cold day in Hell before Shiro disappeared again, even if it meant missing the chance to see his twin.

Back at the Watchtower, Shiro noticed that Lotor was fiddling with his white ring, much like Ryou was in the video that he was watching for the twenty fifth time or so.

"Lotor?" He heard Jiro whisper. "You okay?"

"Hm?" Lotor looked to Jiro, startled. "Yes. I'm fine. I-" he looked back down at the ring. "Have a bad feeling."

"Oh." Jiro nodded. "Yeah, I used to get that too when your mom was using me like a puppet."

"Will you and your clan never cease with that?" Lotor sighed.

Jiro shrugged.

Lotor sighed again.

Shiro shook his head and looked back to the video just as Ryou blew the kiss. He moved his hand to play it again.

"Takashi." Batman was using his warning tone. This wasn't exactly healthy and it'd be bad if...

"Just one more time." Shiro replied, hoping and trying not to think that this would be the last video of Ryou. "Please?" He looked up to Batman with half intentional puppy dog eyes.

Batman narrowed his eyes. "One more." He conceded.

"Thanks Dad," Shiro smiled and played the video one more time.

......

............

When Ryou came back, he saw Varice asleep, a miracle among miracles, at her desk, surrounded by the usual amount of screens. He smiled and found a blanket to drape over her, careful with the cast-like construct that was now covering his left arm.

He checked the security system and saw that four guests had stopped by. Batman hadn't really changed, though he can tell there were a few not-yet healed injuries he was hiding. His heart nearly skipped a beat when he saw the white haired clone and felt a mix of anger and fear rushing through him, making him wince, especially when the clone stood side by side with Takashi.

"Shh," he whispered to himself, holding his left arm. "It'll be okay."

"You best be on your way." Varice, half awake, managed to say between yawns.

"I know I know," Ryou smiled. "You try not to overwork yourself."

"Hypocrisy," Varice sing-sang tiredly.

Ryou shook his head, still tending to his injury.

His ring glowed a bit and showed coordinates.

"I'm off." Ryou said gently as he saw R2-Beta skulking around in Night Watch mode.

"Be safe." Varice mumbled before going back to sleep.

Once out of the facility, Ryou took off to the sky, wincing once more, looking at where the ring was telling him to go.

"Things are heating up, eh?" He smirked and flew off faster, ignoring the burning pain. "Time to do my best!"

He looked back to the ring, replaying the security footage and seeing Takashi was fixated on a screen. From the angle, he can partially see that Takashi was in fact seeing the videos Ryou had on Varice's computer.

"Aw man," Ryou shook his head and face-palmed. "What was I thinking?"

"Stay focused." The feminine voice of a certain orb replied tiredly to him from the ring. "Your reality is but one branch in a mighty and ever expanding tree-"

"Yes yes and there's a rot that threatens to destroy it, blah blah blah." Ryou replied.

"Focus." The orb said more sternly.

"I am." Ryou laughed a bit despite the pain. "I was raised to expect anything and everything and I myself am a creature of chaos. I got this."

"Just try not to hurt yourself again." The orb instructed. "We cannot let the pieces-"

"Fall into the wrong hands," Ryou interrupted again, trying not to sound annoyed now. "I know what I'm doing. I grew up in Gotham."

The orb sighed. "I do not know what that means but I, begrudgingly, trust your judgement to set right what has gone wrong."

"Roger dodger." Ryou did a two finger salute and disappeared into a wormhole.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Narrator voice: If you listen closely, you can hear the unearthly call of a goblin in the distance-
> 
> *evil and only somewhat distressed cackling*

Earlier that day...

Ryou was happy to see Sven, Rollux, and Slav again and was even more happy to listen as to what they had been getting up to since he's been away, even if it wasn't all too long ago. He even met the elusive Akira, a high ranking member of the Guns, their reality's version of the Blades, who looked exactly like Keith if Keith was an anime protagonist, from head to toe he was a unique character with wild hair, an iconic outfit that set him apart from the rest of the Guns, and it was all complete with a calm and level headed personality that was surprising to see in a face that looked so similar to Keith's.

Things had gotten a bit hairy in their reality however, as the High Priestess beefed up security and kicked her research and development into overdrive within the span of time between Ryou's departure and return, resulting in some new toys for the Varice of that reality to play with that were not in the least bit child friendly. The Varice of that reality had also discovered how to rip the seams between realities and Ryou was tasked by the ever wise masters of Oriande to not let it escalate any further.

Which was...

Surprisingly easy.

Meet one supervillain, meet them all and in Ryou's case, who had been dealing with all manner of petty crooks and super-powered jerks looking to take over the world since he was but a child, he managed to push just the right buttons he wouldn't normally dare press with the Varice he knew to make this Varice squirm and lose control.

She was close to the ever elusive power, but not close enough. Without the power rings nor the equation, as it was called by his Varice, her methods were incomplete and running on subpar substitutes, which he happily rubbed in the High Priestess' face.

He ran circles around her, pestering her with all sorts of constructs and words, and managed to remove the crude tools she had been using to power herself in the rift piece by piece, preserving most of the structural integrity but rendering them useless.

One by one, piece by piece, she was left with her bare emaciated hands, now looking more like the claws of some starved creature than an intelligent being as she flailed uselessly at him.

At that point, Ryou just felt sorry for her. So close yet so far, misguided.

The masters of Oriande took it from there, assuring Ryou she would merely be imprisoned and not torn to subatomic shreds by them, as another disturbance in the force appeared as indicated by his ring.

"I can handle her." Ryou cracked his knuckles seeing the familiar hooded figure of the Galra's High Priestess once, and perhaps always, the beloved wife of Zarkon and empress of the Empire.

"No you cannot." One of the orbs, the regal motherly one that was quite open if begrudgingly so to his ideas.

"I can try." Ryou argued as he tried to charge forward with construct in hand, two blades resembling oversized batarangs, only for the orb to hold him back. "Hey!"

"No you cannot even try." The orb argued as it formed a bubble around Ryou that even he could not dispel. "We had given her our power and she has corrupted it."

"I just took down her sort of alternate self!" Ryou barked back, pushing against the walls of the bubble. "Let me help!"

The orb seemed to growl. "There is no shame in retreating."

"I just need one swing," Ryou dispelled the bubble around him, thought possibly it was simply done by the orb that made it, and charged at Haggar. "This one's been a long time coming ya old hag!" 

He smiled with a frenzy, feeling the rush of blood lust deep within his core.

Haggar turned and her eyes were much different. The glowing eyes were replaced by a wide eyed madness currently filled with anger, heightened by how her cheek markings now stretched down to her chin. In fact, her entire face seemed skeletal and, for lack of a better word, haggard.

He couldn't let that trip him up and he went for a swing with his construct.

Haggar, or was she Honerva now he wondered, brushed him aside and thrust her hand forward into his chest.

Ryou twisted and dodged by a single hair that was singed by the swirling dark energy radiating from her hand. He took advantage of the momentum to try and deal with her in a more physical style of combat that he figured mages weren't well versed in.

She put her arms up to block, and she was flung back by the force of a kick, though she was still standing, or at least upright as this realm between realities had no ground to stand on, and a lot more enraged than before.

"You are but an amateur," Honerva growled. "You have no right to wield this power!"

"Says the undead-" Ryou was about to finish that sentence when he saw a black energy form in Honerva's hands. "Ah fudgsicle." He formed a shield as the black energy came at him.

The black energy crackled as it struck the white shield, breaking it at its seams and when it bursts, Ryou zipped away, though his left forearm was still caught by the black energy.

His arm went limp and it hurt more than any other pain he had come to know and considering all of his experiences that was a high bar to measure up to.

It hurt yet felt numb and dead.

A stinging, burning, pain that shot up with every movement he made, no matter how minuscule.

Each nerve was ripping itself apart and he could feel every nanosecond of that pain.

Ryou whimpered and felt tears in his eyes but held steady, wrapping his arm in a construct to keep it steady for the time being.

"You missed!" He yelled, though his voice wavered as another pain in his leg made itself known.

Looking down, the black energy was now wrapped around his left ankle.

"That's not good." Ryou's eyes widened as he realized his folly.

Honerva was charging another blast and aiming it right at Ryou again as he was stunned in pain and surprise and dare he say a primordial fear.

"NO!" The orb that had still stuck around came between Ryou and Honerva just as Honerva released the physical bolt of death and took the full force of the blast with an agonizing shriek.

Ryou wanted to call out to her-her?-but no name came to mind, only feebly yelling a no in some tongue he himself did not understand.

"Go!" The orb struggled to say, still shielding him from the black energy. "I-" another shriek. "I'll be fine!"

"No you won't!" Ryou felt his arm flare up in pain again, feeling a desperation in his voice.

"The other pieces-" the orb stammered, the black energy infecting its being now. "There are only three of you-" she grunted again. "But two pieces are enough to repair the damage she has done!"

"I'm not leaving you!" Ryou formed another construct, but it glitched as whatever was in his arm and leg sent more pain into his body.

"GO!" The orb glowed brighter and Ryou felt an odd push against him.

It wasn't just an abstract force of, say, a bomb going off and the shock-wave flinging away anything in its path.

More so, he felt as though two hands were placed on his chest for a fraction of a second before those hands thrust him away with all their unseen might and might was something these hands had more than enough of.

Ryou was flung out of the seams and his vision went blank with static.

His arm was in searing pain again and he felt himself falling further and further down, faster and faster.

And then...

Nothing. He didn't know how long he had been out or even if he had gone unconscious. All he knew was that, judging from the familiar scenery, he was now on Varice's world and the alien sun had long since yet, casting him in darkness that now felt frightening and filled with dread that he hadn't felt since the first time he arrived.

Getting back up and wincing in pain, Ryou looked around.

"Hey!" He called out to the air and trees around him.

Nothing. Nothing but the rustling leaves and nighttime critters answered, though he was not looking for their replies.

"Oriande!?" He called out again, unsure. "Are you okay!?"

Nothing again and how mocking the sounds of nature were now.

His arm, and now his leg, were in pain.

Growling, tears welled in his eyes. "I'm sorry."

Inside the facility, he checked for anything out of the ordinary, but only found evidence of his brother, his father, his new clone brother, and Lotor dropping by. From the looks of it his brothers and father were getting along swimmingly while Lotor's behavior could be worse. Or better. Less stiff and timid would be the appropriate words.

His ring beeped and he felt a familiar presence with him and it took everything he had to not shout to the heavens above with all his breath.

"I'm off." Ryou said as calmly and gently as he could, seeing one of his robots roaming about as they were programmed to do.

"Be safe," Varice told him tiredly, seemingly unaware of his less than stellar condition.

Once outside and off on the cosmic trail, Ryou looked at the ring again.

"You're okay." He smiled and felt a great relief wash over him but it was short lived.

"Just barely." The orb's tired voice replied. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah," Ryou winced as he lied. "Don't worry about me." He looked at the security camera footage, shaking his head and facepalming. "Aw man, what was I thinking?"

"Stay focused." The feminine voiced orb, tiredly, replied to him from the ring. "Your reality is but one branch in a mighty and ever expanding tree-"

"Yes yes and there's a pest that threatens to destroy it, blah blah blah." Ryou replied.

After some more small talk, Ryou entered a wormhole, feeling that extreme pain in his extremities growing with intensity once more. His vision blurred and sweat ran down his brow. He steadied his breathing, and once he was able to see a bit more clearly, he saw he was near Kerberos.

"We meet again ice moon of death," He sighed, remembering the events he was not there for and the investigation that led to nothing.

Another wormhole would get him to Earth, or the Watchtower, in about two seconds, though he didn't think his body could handle it, not in its current state and definitely not in whatever state he'd be in if he used the white light's power in such a capacity, as even the force field that gave him breathable air and movement in space was taxing what little time he had. Even moving his arm to try and form the wormhole took most of his strength.

"Alright," Ryou growled and panted heavily. "Going the long way."

He started and figured he could get to Earth in about an hour or so, depending on his pace, which started about as fast as a run and began slowing down more and more as the pain increased until it was a measly and pathetic crawl. Almost at a snail's pace now, Ryou focused on his breathing.

"You are in grave danger." The orb told him sadly, as if she had seen this kind of thing before.

"I'll be fine." Ryou argued, his pace was slowing down more and more that he doubted he was even moving at all.

"You are dying." The orb said sternly now, though her voice cracked with a bit of mourning.

"Met Death, she's chill." Ryou panting was shallow now. "The pieces you mentioned, Lotor has one too, right?"

"Yes." The orb sighed. "As well as....her."

"Oh." Ryou's eyes widened a bit, almost stopping completely if he hadn't already. Who else, he wondered, but he felt he knew the identity of the third piece if it wasn't the woman who just crippled him. "Is that good? Or bad?"

The orb was silent.

"Hey." Ryou called out weakly. "My piece-can it slow down whatever this is?" He looked down at his cast as it glitched once more but held its shape as he concentrated as best he could.

"It might slow it down." The orb sighed, again as if she had encountered this and was trying to comfort him in any way she can. "But more pieces will be required to completely heal the damage of..."

"Of what?" Ryou could see a faint speck that may have been Neptune or one of its moons, and he felt the answer creeping in his mind.

The orb went silent again.

"Hey come on," Ryou grunted in pain, slowing down even more as the image of that woman in black made itself known. "What am I? Chopped liver?" He tried to laugh, feeling pain shooting up from his leg and arm.

"The damage of death." The orb said softly.

"O-oh." Ryou's voice was small and weak, the sound of that word crushing whatever dumb but stubborn hope he was desperately clinging to.

"To slow its progress, you would need to focus all of your energy on the healing process." The orb told him.

"Right." Ryou nodded, feeling bile in his throat. "Right right right. Got it." He took a deep breath.

"Focus on your inner light," the orb continued to instruct him. "The feeling of warmth and calm flowing through your being."

"I know how this works." Ryou said, eyes closed as he tried to steady his shallow breaths.

"Do you?" The orb sounded angry. "Do you truly understand this power you wield?"

"It's the whole spectrum," Ryou furrowed his eyebrows, feeling more sweat as he focused on the light. "Control my emotions, control this power, right?"

"You are-" the orb sighed, exasperated in such a petty way that could only occur when all attempt to be serious was almost if not entirely discarded. "Correct."

"Alright." Ryou sighed back. "Let me do this, and you go back to whatever duties you need to do."

A moment of silence passed as Ryou focused bits and pieces of light into the areas that hurt the most, areas that spread the more he put effort into them.

"My duties, limited they may be, are here as well." The orb said again, softly, and the orb of light began to grow into a sort of bubble that formed around Ryou until all he could see what white.

He heard a sort of tinkling sound, almost like a single wind chime being struck, and with it more warmth wrapped around him like a hug, once again not in an abstract sense but if a physical body was right there holding him in their arms to the point where he believed he can almost feel their breath on the back of his neck.

He could feel gentle lithe arms wrapped around his shoulders and a body pressing but not overbearingly so against his back, and it felt comforting.

The tinkling sound stopped for a brief moment, and the orb said three words that resonated most with his heart and clear as day they rang and echoed in his mind.

With those three words, Ryou felt a wave of warmth come over his body, easing the pain in his arm and leg if only for a moment as it still hurt, immensely so, but less awful than before.

"Thank you," Ryou whispered and his vision blurred. He curled into himself, hands clasped together almost in prayer and close to his chest.

"I am sorry." The orb said as the ethereal touch pulled away. "I cannot do much more. It will take more time to regain my strength."

"Don't worry about it." Ryou said and he felt himself drifting into unconsciousness, feeling so small without that touch around him.

Drifting...

Slowly...

Quietly...


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Somehow I managed to crawl out of my goblin hoard of WIPs to get this up. Enjoy!

It was difficult trying to stay awake, yet surprisingly easy with the ever present feeling of dread as the pain slowly crept up his limbs. He didn't know when but at some point it had gone numb, and those limbs, the hand he worked so tirelessly with ever since he could remember and the leg that carried him through so many walks and jumps and dances, felt unlike limbs and more so like heavy burdens he had to carry.

At some point Ryou felt someone approaching him. A familiar pair of voices, both of them concerned as he felt physical hands grabbing onto him, wrapping around his form and giving him a gentle push. They were moving fast.

His eyes were heavy but he managed to crack them open, seeing bright green light as those voices became a bit more clear now.

"Batman is not going to like this," Clark said with a patient anger in his eyes that meant he was planning to give a proper beating to whoever did this.

"You're faster," Hal replied, almost too loud for Ryou despite his voice being low. "Go get the med-bay ready."

"Right." With that, last survivor of his kind turned farm boy turned superhero was off to the Watchtower, and judging by the fact they had just past Jupiter, they weren't too far.

Ryou craned his head ever so slightly, barely a twitch, and looked up to Hal. "Hey Uncle."

"Hey there kiddo," Hal said softly, though still a bit loud. "Try to stay awake now, okay?"

"Can do," Ryou wheezed, feeling that the numbness has spread just past his elbow and just reaching his knee continuing its crawl upward.

Focusing on his breathing and muttering to himself, Ryou eventually felt himself being weighed down by the artificial gravity of the Watchtower. The weight on his foot sent pins and needles up and he froze as he realized just how far this otherwordly infection had spread. There was a woosh sort of sound and a flash of red that settled into the form of Barry.

"I'll take him from here," Barry, gently but quickly, grabbed Ryou from Hal.

"Leg." Ryou managed to say before Barry went full speedster with him. "Leg's banged up too." He grunted in pain, trying to move any of his fingers or toes but nothing worked.

"Right." Barry moved to try and pick up Ryou bridal style.

"Don't patronize me," Ryou, perhaps on what little muscle memory he had, attempted to summon his forcefield to float about but stopped when it sent pain into his core, relenting quite quickly to being carried.

At the med-bay, Bruce was getting a multitude of medical equipment ready, including some sort of pod thing, when Barry and Ryou hobbled in. He froze and Ryou can briefly see something akin to fear in the eyes of the caped crusader, something Ryou had only seen a few times before and never once was it a good thing to see Batman, the freaking Batman who was regarded as an urban legend at best and legit force of nature at worst, scared. Bruce, now in worried parent mode, a more familiar set of behaviors that Ryou was glad to see, took over from there without uttering a single word to anyone else.

"Get in the pod-" Bruce began to say while trying to get Ryou moving when Ryou held up his good hand to stop him.

"Not going to work." Ryou grunted in response, feeling out of breath now despite knowing damn well that whatever was killing him shouldn't be in his lungs yet as he sat on an empty table. "Don't-" he felt the damage spread a bit more upwards, closer to the middle of his bicep and just past his knee now. "Know exactly, but Lotor needs to be here."

"Lotor?" John Stewart raised his voice as if he'd just been told they need Joker or Lex Luthor for help. "Why him?"

"Rings-" Ryou hobbled his way to a bed with Bruce's and Barry's help. "It's the rings. Just get him here-" he felt a new stinging sensation creeping up his limbs and gritted his teeth. "NOW."

Bruce was about to look to Barry who was quick to do a two finger salute.

"Consider it done!" Barry went off to goodness knows where before Bruce could even give him a look.

There was tugging and pulling now, a pair of hands was on him, gentle but trying to be quick with his jacket to peel it off, perhaps to get a better look at what they were facing, and he could hear a pin drop in the silence that followed.

"What the hell?" Hal's eyes widened, voice barely a whisper and perhaps even shaking.

Ryou raised an eyebrow, looking down to see his arm being enveloped in pure black as if he dipped it in tar or paint and where the healthy flesh met the disease was fittingly marked by visible black veins.

"Ah." He panted and leaned back. "Well that's no good."

Bruce was quick to reach the medical equipment, looking for an empty syringe and damn near tossing anything else to the floor.

Hal constructed a syringe to save a bit of time that they now saw they had very little of. "Hold still."

With his good arm, Ryou grabbed a nearby towel and stuffed it in his mouth before nodding to Hal knowing that no matter what happened next it was going to hurt.

Quickly, as if to lessen the pain but failing horribly, Hal extracted some of the blackness that was eating away at Ryou, straight from the fully enveloped limb. Ryou felt a scream escape his throat before he snuffed it down into a grunt, feeling his body seize as two things that should not be in his system were fighting over him. When it was over Ryou was panting against the towel and the syringe construct now held a squirming black ichor.

"I'm here!" Lotor appeared in a flash of light, momentarily startling anyone not expecting it, that being everyone minus Bruce. "What's-" his eyes widened at the sight of Ryou, though whether it was from recognizing him or the sight of his current condition was not clear. "It's you."

"I-hs-'e," Ryou mumbled against the towel and spat it out along with what felt like half a gallon of spit. "Power up, heal me up, or I swear on my remaining ten-" pain shot up his limbs again, the spread now visible as some of the veins were now engulfed in the blackness. "Nine minutes of borrowed time I am going to cut that hair of yours!"

"Odd threat." Hal raised an eyebrow and mumbled as he handed over the sample of the ichor to Bruce.

Lotor nodded but looked around unsuredly, even looking at his hand. "What should I be-"

"Oh for the love of-" Ryou growled and when he spoke, he heard himself say the words he could hear from the orb when it tried to heal him though it seemed there was a miscommunication, similar to what he had heard from the orb aside from those specific words.

Lotor raised an eyebrow. "That-...I didn't...quite catch that."

Narrowing his eyes, Ryou looked at the ring, at his arm, and back to Lotor, words flowing through his mind like a flood. "Oriande-" he winced, as if the mere thought of that word counted as using the white ring's power. "When you got the ring from Oriande, was there a special phrase you heard? Something profound and probably confusing?"

"Ryou this thing is spreading we don't have time for fortune cookie philosophy hour!" John scowled at the ichor as it seemed to be splattering itself against its container in an attempt to attach itself to whoever was closest.

"Shhush!" Ryou waved at John and everyone else while hissing. "Shush! Trust me, please?" He looked to them, seeing their hesitation and desperate expressions. If this didn't work...

Bruce put a hand on Ryou's shoulder, careful of the spreading substance. "I trust that you have a plan, son."

If anyone had any objections, they didn't speak it.

Ryou nodded and looked to Lotor, trying not to pay too much mind to the numbing pain and the fatigue setting in. "Anything?"

Hesitating, Lotor's eyes looked everywhere as if the words he was looking for were written somewhere on the walls before they widened and he nodded. "Yes. Yes! I-I know what you're talking about! I was told-"

Lotor's mouth paused as he produced that tinkling sound.

Everything seemed to freeze at that moment.

"Fudgesicle." Ryou spat.

"What?" Lotor asked worriedly. "Should I repeat that?"

"Is that sound some sort of secret language?" John asked. "Because we couldn't hear any of what I'm assuming to be extremely important information."

"That's the same thing you were doing on our way here," Hal held his chin. "White rings," he looked at Lotor and Ryou. "White light. And whatever you two are rattling on about." He sighed and groaned. "Where's Kyle when you need him?"

Lotor and Ryou looked at each other, an unspoken realization between them.

"I-" Lotor frowned deeply, his shoulders dropping and if Ryou's eyesight, already blurry and deteriorating quickly, wasn't tricking him Lotor's long ears may have also twitched and drooped. "I'm sorry. I-"

"Shut up and use that big brain of yours to think, alright?" Ryou growled and tried to steady his breathing again, a little difficult as the pain kept spreading and there was a small panic as Ryou felt it go past his knee. "Death ain't let me get away scot free this time, so think of something." He began muttering again, feeling the warmth in his arm and leg, the only thing he could feel at this point and it didn't last long.

He heard Lotor's voice, well the chime-like tinkling again, and this time he was even glowing a bit, especially in familiar triangular shapes under his eyes.

Pieces...

Like a puzzle...

With a smile Ryou tried to move his bad arm towards Lotor, though it was hard considering the veins were now creeping dangerously close to his neck and he couldn't feel much past his upper shoulder.

As if reading his mind, Bruce gently held Ryou's hand, supporting it by the lower bicep and just under the wrist. He nodded to Lotor, who seemed to understand what the plan was now if it could even be called that.

"Please work-" Lotor muttered as he took hold of Ryou's hand.

White light enveloped Lotor's form and quickly spread its way to Ryou through their hands, which was painful on Ryou's end as it fought its way through the damage with only one millisecond of trouble and had no problem from there. Words rang in his mind. Voices, some familiar, some foreign. His set of words was clear and he heard another set of three, seemingly from Lotor as he felt a rush of emotions washing over him until finally settling into a deep and almost unsettling calm.

A push, abstract once more, and the glow dissipated but not before bursting outward from their connected hands, shoving Bruce and Lotor away and Ryou into the wall with a considerable amount of almost unnecessary force. Ryou felt heavy, a bit banged up especially in the back of his head and a bit breathless, but when he opened his eyes, wondering when they had closed in the first place, he saw that Bruce had properly braced himself despite how little warning he had and Lotor had been flung across the room, leaving a dent of his own in the wall and was now pulling himself up

"Did it work?" Lotor asked, pushing his now disheveled hair out of his face and looking up hopefully.

Ryou looked down to see his arm now back to a healthy color, complete with all of the scars, new and old, still peppering it here and there from misshaps and scraps. The blackness that was spreading was now nowhere to be seen, flaking off like dust and disappearing in tiny white bursts of light.

"Huh." Ryou smirked a bit, feeling his breathing getting back into a normal rhythm. "Wasn't really expecting that."

"You didn't think that would work?" John shot a questioning glare at him.

"Fifty fifty." Ryou shrugged as if this wasn't a literal life or death scenario, actually feeling his arm and shifted, now feeling his leg and thanked every diety that would listen that it didn't get as far as his crotch. "Good as new! Good job everyone!" He tried to flash two thumbs up but his formerly bad arm was still heavy and aching. "Ow."

Lotor smiled and tried to stand though his legs were as weak as a newborn deer. "Oh stars-" He stumbled instead, getting as far as a kneeling position.

Ryou looked to Bruce and saw relief on his face, all tension in his body gone but quickly returning with what Ryou could only guess to be fear of whether this was a proper fix or only temporary. He put a hand on Bruce's shoulder, despite the weight of his limb, and smiled.

"Hal, John." Bruce smiled back and held Ryou's hand again before looking to the Green Lanterns with a stern expression. "Get Barry and run tests on that substance. Ryou," he looked down at Lotor still trying to pick himself up. "Lotor. You two need bed rest."

"Aye aye Captain, but first some foo-oh fu-" Ryou tried to get up and his formerly bad leg gave out with the familiar but less deadly pins and needles shooting up the limb.

Bruce sighed and managed to grab his wobbly son just in time. "What part of bed rest did you not understand?"

Moving to another part of the med-bay and each claiming a bed to themselves that they were not getting out of any time soon with how unsteady they were and under threat of extended stay, Bruce left the two to their own devices as he, after giving them an additional warning them to stay out of trouble, went to get them some food and drinks.

After the door closed and Ryou listened carefully for the faintest sounds of Bruce's footsteps to leave, they both sighed and sat back.

"I'm surprised he isn't locking you in a cage." Lotor flashed half a smile, obviously tired from the whole ordeal judging by how his hair somehow got even more disheveled than it was.

"Oh believe me I'm probably never leaving the manor for months after this," Ryou flashed a smile back, knowing he'd likely never see anything past his room for a good while "And my brothers are quite serious about guard duty."

They shared a small laugh, though Lotor's seemed a bit more awkward but there was a genuine edge to it as if he knew what Ryou was talking about and didn't know if it was appropiate to laugh or not.

"So," Ryou looked to Lotor, looking the former exiled prince turned most hated emperor. "How you've been?"

Lotor sighed, still smiling albeit half-heartedly and looking at his white ring. "Treated like a criminal, held at an arm's length, both literally and figurately restrained, and on an incredibly short-" he paused and thought. "Leash, I believe the word is."

"Better than dead eh?" Ryou huffed, remembering the words that rang in his mind earlier.

"Better than dead indeed." Lotor nodded just as they heard a crash from somehow outside.

"RYOU!" Ryou heard a familiar voice roaring outside the door and footsteps screeching down the hall and his heart almost stopped then and there.

"Welp there goes our small talk," Ryou sighed as the door opened and in rushed Takashi. No words could properly explained how Ryou's heart skipped a beat again, how his breath caught in his throat, and how he half expected to wake up somewhere else, covered in blood or bile or both, trapped in darkness or within the confines of his own rage, and all of this would have been a cruel if lovely in a bittersweet way dream.

Takashi paused momentarily, looking at Lotor, at Ryou, doing a double take and jumping at Ryou, holding tightly and already bawling like a baby.

"Oof, ouch," Ryou half wheezed half choked out, feeling his eyes well up. "Easy with the ar-" he felt a hard joint-possibly Taka's knee, hitting his still somewhat numb leg. "Ow."

Taka wasn't listening in favor peppering Ryou's face with kisses and mumbling half-incoherently in their twin speak, the other half of his speak filled with relieved laughing sobs that were soon shared with Ryou as he returned some of the affectionate kisses and reassuring words. His heart was practically ready to burst out of his chest and his tears made seeing incredibly difficult, but he still managed to find his way to the scar on Taka's nose and his hands managed to grip the prosthetic arm he knew whis twin did not previously have.

"Hey you," Keith, leaning on the wall, smiled and cocked his head, a little teary eyed but nothing a poor excuse of dust in the eye couldn't explain. "Good to have you back."

"Goblin." Ryou nodded as Taka kissed his cheek for the upteenth time, the two of them settling in each other's arms and practically in each other's laps on the not really comfortably sized hospital bed. "Where's Frosty the Snowman at?" He asked as soon as Taka let him be for more than a second.

"Frosty?" Taka raised an eyebrow but he realized who Ryou meant soon enough. "Oh, Jiro?"

"Oh my god that is the most precious name ever," Ryou squeaked and cleared his throat. "Right, serious time. Where is he so I may smother him in love and affection?"

"Off with Dick," Keith answered. "We're still trying to figure out his cover story and why he looks like your long lost triplet."

"Speaking of," Ryou craned his head to look at Lotor, who had been awkwardly silent and watching the whole time. "Operation Kuron-" Lotor visibly winced at those words. "Any clones left? I'm looking to adopt and yes I am serious."

Lotor's eyebrows furrowed and he shook his head. "Axca told me the remaining..." he winced again, "clones have been dealth with. There is nothing left of that entire operation beside Jiro himself."

Takashi and Keith both looked down at that, both having a haunted look in their eyes.

Ryou hissed and clicked his tongue. "Should have known. So much for a Shirogane boy band."

Taka sighed and slapped Ryou upside the head.

"And-" Lotor continued. "The Alteans are being moved. Well, what's left of them. It seems some of them have gone to another colony of my-" he groaned a little. "Mother's making."

"Shifty as heck, but sounds on brand for her." Ryou nodded, a bit disappointed he didn't feel the orb's presence with him. "By the way where's Romelle?" He looked to Keith.

"That's another thing we need to talk about." Keith sighed and glared at Ryou.

"Wait wait wait-" Taka made the time-out gesture. "How do you know Haggar?" He seemed to have an fearful edge in his eyes and it even seemed his prosthetic arm was shaking. His prosthetic. The arm made of metal and wires. Was shaking. Somehow. Maybe?

"Well," Ryou said loudly and shifted in his seat, getting Taka to buzz off and sit on the edge of the bed instead of on top of Ryou's legs, taking a more comfortable pose. "Sit down because this is quite the story from start-" he pulled a bottle of some alien sparkling cider from his pocket dimension and opened it with a cracking pop. "To finish."


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so at first I was worried I might not have been able to post this chapter because of issues with my already spotty internet but we got that covered now so it's no worries here ya go! Almost the end!

After double checking, triple checking, and quadruple checking after another round of white light treatment to make sure the creeping death didn't come back, things were finally settling and slowing down if only for the moment. Plans were being made and lots of talks were being had, and to get away from it all Ryou found himself sitting in the Watchtower's garden, feeling some of the sun, taking in the sight of the greenery and half acknowledging that his mind was trying to send him somewhere else when he heard the door open and shut behind him. The footsteps that followed stopped just behind him and he recognized who those confident but careful treading feet belonged to.

"Hey," He looked behind and resisted the urge to do a double take at the sight before him. Weeks of hearing her voice, hearing her struggle to smile become an easy smirk and a ringing laugh as she excitedly talk about how she was bonding with the Amazons did not prepare him for what he was currently seeing.

"Hey yourself." There stood Romelle, standing tall and proud now but in a completely different outfit. Gone now was the layers of armor and fabric that seemed to both physically and mentally weigh her down. Now she wore something that looked as though someone took Diana's Wonder Woman armor, cropped the top half while recoloring it blue, and replaced the skirt with black pants, all complete with silver armor here and there. On top of all of that her braid had come loose into a wild ponytail.

"Themyscira's been kind to you," Ryou cleared his throat, feeling a little heat in his cheeks, also noticing all the crisscrossing scars and more of those markings that were now visible. More than that, he also noticed that she was holding a whole pineapple with a hefty bite already taken out of it.

"Yes," she smiled, almost smirking at his reaction, and sat down with him. "And I now understand all of your eccentricities once I saw that you grew up in a cave."

"You're not entirely wrong," Ryou smirked back. "You did see the upstairs right?"

"Only at night," Romelle replied, looking out at the Earth as if it was the first time she was ever laying her eyes on it. "Your father insisted that the public doesn't see me until certain details had been discussed. I swear that man lives every day as though it was his last."

"True." Ryo shrugged. "We have a carefully constructed public image, those vultures with cameras will eat the family alive if they knew that Bruce Wayne lives in Batman's attic and that's only if they don't put two and two together."

"Earthlings are so strange," Romelle took another bite of the pineapple, not minding the spikes on it at all. "Or is it something unique to Man's World, as Queen Hippolyta calls it?"

"Ehhh," Ryou shrugged again. "I mean is it really a human thing? A male thing? I almost died for a power hungry woman and it wasn't the first time either."

Romelle let out a snorting laugh, remembering that she was in fact one of these women in his life, if by power one meant the right to have the Champion as a personal attack beast. Ryou laughed with her and they shared that laugh for what seemed like a long while but they knew it was only a brief moment, perhaps not even a minute when a silence fell between them, only broken by the sound of another bite and chewing.

"So what now?" Romelle asked while chewing.

"Well the Galra are tossed to the wind, a mess that the Paladins have been so honorably tasked with cleaning up," Ryou began listing off, a bit of resentment in his eyes at that second task. "Then there's picking a new leader for them since I'm pretty sure Lotor doesn't wanna do it anymore and honestly I think it'd be good for him."

Romelle took an angry bite out of the fruit, which Ryou took as a clear sign to switch topics.

"For Earth, it'll be business as usual, with the addition of the League being on the look out for any stragglers, Galra or not. Surprisingly our little backwater planet isn't new to alien invasions yet we don't have any real protocols in place. If you ask me I blame the bureaucracy." Ryou continued, a bit solemn and feeling oddly heavy. "If you want to be more specific," he looked at her and flashed half a knowing smile.

She smiled back, almost reading his mind. "I know the answer but dare I ask what is going on in that head of yours?"

Ryou snorted a little and he got comfy, smiling even more at her. "Well as I've previously mentioned before-"

"About twenty five times but do go on." Romelle laughed a bit and took another bite, the pineapple almost gone.

"Well now that a whole new world of technology new and old has been revealed I was thinking of using my admittedly rusty people skills to set up some connections and acquire some of said new and old technology because I am a selfish little goblin that can and will get my grubby little hands on all the shiny things. Of course this means lots of travelling. We can set up in the bunker if you'd like and-" he was about to continue but felt he had already said too much. "Well, is there anywhere in space you'd like to see more often?"

Romelle thought about it, looking down at her snack and her smile becoming faint. "When I was younger, when I had just joined my father and brother on their missions, there was a flower I so desperately wanted to find," she began to say, fidgeting more and more. "I found some leads, did some investigating, snuck out more times than I could care to count and headed to a research facility where they were supposedly doing experiments. Stars, I can't even remember what they were doing but I do know that the researchers were frustrated trying to find a substitute for a flower that, supposedly, no longer exists." She looked at the trees and flowers and her shoulders dropped as if being burdened. "It was the juniberry flower, and-" she paused, looking down again. "It grew only on Altea."

"Oh." Ryou had been listening and felt his heart break. "I'm sorry, I-"

"I never knew Altea," she interrupted. "It was always an abstract paradise to me, a bedtime story that adults told to children to help them forget the sounds of battle that raged all around us. A story I loved so much and wanted to make a reality but the older I grew the more it seemed so far away, so unattainable and impossible and yet some part of me kept clinging to the hope that I'd see at least one small part of it someday."

"Hope." Ryou looked at Earth, seeing the archipelago of Japan. Factually, he was born there and he could visit any time he liked, and often did though some of those visits weren't exactly for social reasons. It was just another place. Another set of memories he had mixed feelings of because whenever he was there all he could think of was Gotham, of the manor, of home.

"The Alteans that survived the destruction of the planet changed their skin to blue in remembrance of the home they can never return to." Romelle continued, looking at her hands and the shifting color of them, dark brown rippling against the blue. "As generations passed, it became a color of rebellion. We could identify other rebels if they wore a cloth with this color." Her skin settled into the dark brown that made her look similar to Allura. "What will it become now?" She sighed and leaned back. "I'm not Altean. I'm Polluxian. I'm...hoping. Always hoping, always so stubborn and stupid. But if the generations before me couldn't achieve that dream, then what makes me think that I can?"

Ryou had so many words he could say but none of them seemed to be just right, so instead he scooted closer to her and, a bit hesitantly but shaking that fear away, he reached out and held her hand gently, seeing her loosen up at his touch.

"Am I interrupting something?" John's voice surprised the two of them.

"Yes." Romelle's posture became stiff again as she glared at the Green Lantern.

"What's up?" Ryou asked, still soothingly holding Romelle's hand.

"There's talk of the High Priestess making a big move," John explained matter of factly, fitting of his military background. "And you have a guest," he looked to Ryou, who returned it with confusion.

At the meeting room, standing as if she owned the Watchtower and looking down at Earth with her hands behind her back with a seemingly similar look about her stood Varice, still menacing now that she was surrounded by cold metal walls and not slightly warm living plants. She made no visible motion as the doors opened and yet Ryou can see that she was expecting him.

"Heard your rival was coming for a visit?" Ryou smirked. "Or did you want to do some sight seeing? I know some cool dump sites."

"Actually," she turned towards him and shot a smirk back in her own little way, though she looked back at the blue marble the Watchtower orbited around. "I wanted to tease the little emperor a bit more if I could. Though it seems everyone is so busy around here."

It was Romelle's turn to smirk now as she finished up the pineapple. "I like her already."

As Ryou caught up with Varice, detailing his newest brush with death, the plans that were now in motion and even a bit of personal talk when the League members began to file in, though Batman had still yet to appear, currently occupied by the sample of ichor that was devastating Ryou's body and still attempting to make sense of it when Flash had concluded that it was something living yet dead at the same time.

Batman went over it multiple times, seeing it glowed and emitted those black particles whenever it moved, especially when it was constantly trying to attack any living organic matter it came across yet it never grew in size. Whatever it was, it didn't kill for sustenance. It killed because it could.

"Some sort of necrosis," Batman said to himself, ignoring the yawn that tried to come out of him and the familiar feeling of coffee no longer working. "Possibly sentient."

The door opened and Hal stepped in, well more so floated in as he seemed to find it more convenient despite only ever going as fast as a regular walking pace.

"Hey, we got one more seat," Hal jerked his thumb over his shoulder, an almost too casual smile on his face. "Need all hands on deck and last I checked you're still part of the team."

Batman looked at the sample, seeing it splatter itself against the glass trying to get to him, then back to Hal. "Never said I wasn't." He left the sample in its container and joined Hal on the walk back to the meeting room.

At this point, the League and the Paladins were able to coordinate pretty well with each other and even had a few successful missions under their belts, minus any wayward teen hormones, idolization, and still-growing-brains clouding judgement. Ryou had to act as mediator between Allura and Lotor, which at times felt absolutely pathetic for the former emperor and at times even a bit cathartic when they had to go over every detail of Lotor's little planet sized quintessence project but once he learned that Allura had also learned from Oriande, he got the two to at least be professional with each other as he convinced them that three pieces working together would be better than three separate pieces.

"Lotor," during another segment of planning, Superman looked to the Galra-Altean hybrid with one part worry and one part questioning suspicion. "Are you sure you want to fight your own mom, if the time comes?"

Clenching his fists and sighing, letting said tension go, Lotor looked back with some resolve. "In another time, another place, perhaps I would have reservations. But she has gone too far and needs to be stopped before it can go any further. I cannot take her life, however, both on principle and at risk of losing the white ring."

"The Alteans under her command are being manipulated," Allura looked down as she recalled what happened to the one in the robeast. "Not to mention that we still know little about that energy she used against you, Ryou."

Ryou nodded in acknowledgement. "Just point me to where butts need kicking." He did a two finger salute.

"Same," Romelle, arms crossed, leaning back in her seat. "I could also attempt to bond some Amazons with a blue ring-" she raised her hand and from her blue ring a copy emerged and sat in her palm. "Provide some well-needed back up for the Green Lantern Corps." She tossed a smirk at Guy, who shot a glare back, possibly still remembering how she used him as a dumbbell during a training session.

"I could coordinate with the primitive military on Earth," Varice joined in the conversation, once again surrounded by no less than half a dozen holographic screens with various text and diagrams on them. "Unless His Majesty believe my talents shall be needed elsewhere, by the gods these battle formations are so archaic."

"I would prefer you not call me that," Lotor sighed but his words fell on deaf ears.

"The Galaxy Garrison has been developing new technology," Hal noted, bringing up some blueprints that Ryou took a quick glance at. "They could set up a stronghold, evacuate civilians, protect entire cities with the new particle barriers-"

"There's still a mole within the Garrison," Takashi interrupted, trying not to let the anger in his voice be too apparent. "If they leak that information to Haggar-" he gritted his teeth but kept his composure despite the circumstances.

This elusive mole was still a nagging thorn in the League's side. They had begun to work with the fragmented forces of the Fire of Purification that managed to escape the Justice League and the Green Lanterns, coordinating with them in their attacks and helping them evade capture time and time again, though the League was successful in thinning out the Fire's numbers, though the number of detained members was still rather small compared to those that willingly decided to die in combat one way or another. The mole was a crafty one, even outsmarting Batman a couple of times but now Batman was almost certain he knew who it was.

"I'll take care of the mole." Batman, well rested thanks to the equally nagging protests of the combined forces of his children "Guy, do some reconnaissance, report back what numbers we're working with and if they have any new weapons or technology we're not aware of."

"Not to question your bottomless well of wisdom there Batman but I ain't exactly the sneaky spying type." Guy mentioned with some sort of hesitation hidden under some of his usual snark. "Why not send the Royal Pain In The-"

"Guy." Hal and John both snapped at him for the upteenth time now.

"I was going to say neck." Guy defended himself though everyone knew he wasn't.

"We need someone who won't be looking to pick a fight with death itself," Flash clarified, glancing at the twins but more importantly Keith, who was still grounded for more than one such stunt.

"Herself," Ryou corrected, his hands having wandered and now braiding small sections of Romelle's hair. "Met Death, she's chill, trying not to be in a situation where I have to meet her again though because I'm pretty sure she'll keep me next time."

Hunk looked at him a bit quizzically though some part of his seemed exasperated as if he knew such a crazy thing happened. "You met Death? The actual physical embodiment of the end of life?"

"And beginning." Ryou chirped a little too happily. "Though I'm sure whatever Lotor's mom has going on is something completely different."

"Leave Honerva to me." Allura said with a cold edge in her voice that the Paladins were quick to notice and share a look over.

"You're not fighting her alone," Takashi held Allura's hand and gave her this sort of look, the look Ryou can only describe as saying that everything will be okay or else he'd have some words for destiny and fate, looking at the rest of the Paladins who all had the same resolve, earning a solemn smile from Allura.

"So," Diana stood up, taking her signature pose with her hands on her hips. "Should we begin planning for battle?"

Everyone looked at each other. This was the moment. No turning back now, not that anyone would. Here and now they were putting in their bets and it was up to the battlefield whether they'd be lucky or not. A chair squeaked and Romelle cleared her throat.

"Were we not already doing that?" Romelle uncrossed her arms and leaned forward, resting her elbows on the table and her chin on top of her hands in an almost bored way.

"Let's make sure all of our ducks are in a row before we head out," Superman also stood, looking to the Paladins specifically who were quick to react to that.

When all was said and done and everyone knew what parts they'd be playing and when and not a second sooner or later and plans B through Z were also discussed should anything go wrong ever at any point in time, Batman managed to get Takashi and Ryou together again before they had headed out and in separate ways.

He didn't say anything at first. Their family was one that could reach other like open books but words were always just as important and sometimes even more important than a knowing smile or a hand on the shoulder. He could see in their faces they knew what he wanted to say but they skipped the words and went straight for the hug and Batman was in some ways glad that they did.

"Be safe out there." Batman did speak, low and barely whispering, as he held his sons in his arms, knowing he can't be by their sides and had to trust their instincts and that he truly did prepare them for everything.

"Not letting this one out of my sight," Takashi shot a smirk at Ryou, even flicking his twin's forehead to prove a point.

"I should be saying that to you." Ryou shot it back, both the look and the forehead flick.

The three share a small laugh, well two laughed and Batman huffed, trying to smile but feeling very little motivation to besides keeping their collective morale up only for them to be interrupted by Pidge's whistling.

"Save the sappy stuff for later we gotta go!" She yelled and began to run down the hall.

Takashi nodded to Ryou and the two were off, both in different directions, both to only god and hell knows where once they were out of sight. For a split second, Batman saw them at half their height, wearing the hand-made costumes they first wore when they wanted to join him and Robin all those years ago. Little Starling who would have traded his soul for a pair of wings if he wasn't clever enough to draft a consequence free contract and little Magpie who could never be satisfied with his collection of all sorts of odds and ends.

"Batman-" Superman began to say, having approached just as the twins disappeared from view.

"I know." Batman turned to Superman. "Did you call Lois?"

"Yes," Superman sighed as they also began going their own way to their positions in this grand scheme of lasers and giant sentient cat robots. "She and Jon are somewhere safe. By the way, really nice of you to let them into the cave. I know you're really picky about guests."

Batman half grunted half growled, much to what little amusement Superman could find.

"I still say the younger teams are going to join whether we want them to or not." Superman continued as they reached the now inactive meeting room for one last look at the planet they've fought for so many times, the Kryptonian especially sensing each and every life on the surface of that planet and how a large portion of them were going about unaware of the danger that was creeping closer and closer.

"Of course they're going to get involved." Batman said as he looked to the blip on the radar that was closing in quickly. "If any of Honerva's forces manage to get to Earth, they'll be looking at furious teenagers with superpowers and enough weapon grade explosives to storm a military base."

"Most likely all led by an equally furious Bat or two." Superman tried to smirk, nudging Batman a bit.

Batman saw five colorful blips and narrowed his eyes.

"We're getting through this Bruce," Superman put a hand on Batman's shoulder, careful considering his own strength, feeling that Batman's muscles tense as ever. "We always do."

"Not always," Batman replied, knowing the few times that they didn't and the fates of their alternate selves. "There's no such thing as a good war Clark. We can only do our best and hope it's enough."

"Always looking on the bright side aren't you?" Superman's half smile was a little less forced.

Batman looked at him and narrowed his eyes in response.

The next thing he knew, after coordinating a few attacks and confronting the mole, he was fighting two corpses, one an incredibly gaunt Altean in armor powered by that corrupted quintessence, the other was Admiral Sanda, who had just been betrayed and Batman was one second too late to help. He was lucky so far in avoiding the black energy that they wielded and the ichor that they spewed out, but that luck was fickle and could run out at any time.

He ducked behind a pillar just as the two shot out black bolts of that necrotic energy, seeing the metal decay in a blink of the eye. He peeked out, seeing what was left of Sanda shambling towards him with that same horrified look on her rapidly decaying face. She had tried to get the Fire of Purification back together in an attempt to negotiate, an attempt to save Earth in what way she can only to be left for dead by them and brought back by whatever was controlling Honerva's forces.

Speaking of the Fire of Purification, or the Embers as Guy and Barry had been calling them, they had been looking to gang up on Batman, viewing him as weak and helpless as other humans they gloated about killing, only to be caught in the odd crossfire and once that happened, what little camaraderie was between them had disappeared. Most of them had already been hit and were decaying right in front of their comrade's eyes, some mourning in anger, others in disdain at the fallen as if they were the one at fault for dying. The last one, some sort of captain perhaps, had been hit in her leg and managed to delay it with a hastily made tourniquet if only for a moment and was tinkering with her weapon, judging by the desperate beeping it was making now.

"Follow me if you want to live." He held out his hand as he reached for his grappling hook, seeing an open escape route and by the looks of things the only available escape route.

She glared furiously at him, growling with some tears in her eyes and Batman did not see anger, not for long. He saw pure fear. "Victory or death." She said through gritted teeth.

Batman saw the weapon was sparking in places it shouldn't be sparking in and had to make a decision. He reached out to the Galra but felt his hand get slapped away as the grappling hook pulled him and only him up the skylight, an explosion nipping at his heels as he jumped down the roof and tumbled away from the blast, the heat and shrapnel clawing at the suit's back and tearing part of the cape.

He looked back to what once stood a Galra ship, a safe haven for a group of soldiers who were too far gone in their ideals and couldn't be convinced, a song and dance Batman had unfortunately bore witness to far too many times.

"Bats!" Hal's voice rang in his ears, along with the familiar ringing of tinnitus. "You still alive!? Batman!"

After looking at the smoldering remains of the compound, Batman turned his attention to the fight still going on overhead, realizing he was but a speck in all of this, remaining still as the crumbled remains of a Galra fighter flew past him and crashed nearby. "Yes."

"We're picking you up. Something's going on, we can't reach the Paladins or Ryou!" Hal informed with a desperate and angered growl. "They were talking about tears in reality and a rift and we sorta lost them after that."

Not again.

Not on his watch.

"I'll come to you." Batman said as he grappled onto another low flying Galra fighter that was in much better shape but not for long.


	12. Chapter 12

Ryou and Lotor were stuck in a standoff with Honerva, who was having little trouble with the two novice White Lanterns, even cackling a few times and making jabs at their oh so obvious lack of control with the white light. Lotor was too stiff, a bit predictable in his movements and lacking creativity in his constructs. Ryou on the other hand was banking on years of combat training and on the fly planning and while he can think fast he was having trouble coordinating that spontaneous energy with Lotor... and himself. Nothing was working and when it did it didn't work for long. They couldn't get too close without risking a direct hit from the black energy. Too far and even their best accuracy could miss the slippery witch. And somewhere deep down, Ryou was filled with terror.

Good, he thought to himself. Don't need to add recklessness to this.

"Ugh!" Lotor hissed as he constructed another simple shield to block the black energy. "This is getting us nowhere!"

"Agreed," Ryou grunted as he stumbled and helped support Lotor's shield with one of his own constructs. "How much longer for that Paladin test of worthiness or whatever?" Which was a whole other can of worms in his mind. Didn't they already prove themselves worthy by virtue of being picked by the Lions?

"Who knows," Lotor growled, his eyes wandering and catching all the tears in the fabric of reality that Honerva was making. "Look out!"

The two separated as Honerva sent another blast at them, barely missing them and Ryou could have sworn he saw the ends of Lotor's hair get caught in it.

"Stop this cowardly display Lotor!" Honerva had a wicked and crooked smile on her face as she watched her son dodge all of her attacks. "I know a way to bring you father back." She tried another blast, missing by yet another hair thin margin. "And we can be a happy family! Just like you always wanted!"

Lotor paused and looked at her, conflicted and undoubtedly thinking about the last time he saw Zarkon, and if his stories were true, that was when Lotor had permanently put him down. "Perhaps if circumstances were different," he glared with renewed resolve. "But you have disrupted the balance of the universe and misuse the knowledge of Oriande. For that, you must pay."

Honerva was not a happy camper at those words, her last attempt at manipulation having just slipped through her fingers and judging by her disapproving snarl warping into something much more sinister it seemed she just thought of another plan.

"I see you learned disobedience from those weaklings," Honerva growled as she powered up a bigger blast. "Allow me to teach you that mothers always know bes-"

"Drive by!" Ryou flew by and knocked Honerva with a fly-swatter construct, taking advantage of the usual monologue behavior of almost all supervillains. The fly-swatter construct began to lose form and turned into a whip, which he swiftly cracked at her direction, restraining her arm but it was swatted away just as quickly.

With a growl, Honerva shot a glare at him and began glowing with more energy. "How are you not dead!?" She took aim and fired.

"Gotta try harder than that to keep me down!" Ryou, ignoring many of his instincts that told him to run as far away as possible, smoothly switched between dodging and blocking the blasts, almost looking as though he was dancing.

At the same time, Lotor had seemingly taken cues from Ryou and attached a rope-like construct around Honerva and began flying quick circles around her to tighten it as best he could.

"You-!" Honerva barked as if Lotor had just betrayed her and she broke out with a large blast of that deadly energy and let out an ear piercing shriek.

Lotor and Ryou covered their ears, shielding themselves against the burst of black energy and circling around and regrouping just as a glowing light appeared and revealed the Paladins, including Jiro and Allura.

"More interference," Honerva growled at the sight of them.

"Took you long enough!" Ryou half playfully punched Takashi's shoulder, shrinking the shield but keeping it up just in case as that sudden burst had only momentarily tired her out.

"You try fighting Zarkon when he's acting more like a doof than an evil tyrant." Takashi playfully punched back though he sounded pretty guilty at that. "How were things on your-"

"Scatter!" Ryou created a bubble between all of them and popped it, sending everyone flying a few feet away from the exceptionally powerful looking blast that broke Lotor's shield in practically an instant.

"We can do without the percussive assistance!" Lance shouted as he did a combat roll and took a fighting stance as soon as he could.

"So no good?" Hunk guessed as he saw Honerva's glare and also readied his activated bayard.

"Nah we almost got it, right Lotor?" Ryou stood up front, side to side with Lotor who seemed a bit winded but otherwise in good shape.

"Right." Lotor nodded with a smile, a certain fire burning in his eyes now and that was all Ryou needed to see to know that there will be no more hesitation from him.

Together, they each formed half of a pair of handcuffs large enough to contain a person from head to toe, their target specifically.

That did nothing to intimidate Honerva, as the mad alchemist former empress and High Priestess began to giggle, which became a wheezing chuckle and finally bellowed out a screeching cackle, her eyes, wider than ever with madness and predatory intent, now focused on them. "Oh? You think you can make me bend the knee?"

"For the last time, I did win the Kral Zera!" Lotor was thoroughly annoyed at his totally legit and fair win of his arguable birthright being seemingly put to question once more by the very last person he ever wanted to hear it from.

"Then come show me what you can do." Honerva opened her arms wide as if for a hug, her tone having a deceptive sweetness under the mocking condescending nature of her words.

"It's a trap," Pidge warned though no words were actually needed.

"Ryou?" Keith looked at him with some worry, restless and exhausted and adrenaline quickly running out.

Teeth clenched, almost all other options exhausted, Ryou and Lotor shared another look, both knowing something was up but they still went forward for turning back was absolutely not an option now, their constructs at the ready and yelling fiercely with all their might.

Honerva sneering lips opened and from the depths of her spirit emitted a low, booming, thunderous rumble of a sound came out. Her extremities were now covered in that same blackness that she infected Ryou with and from where she stood a wave of energy emerged from her being, spreading out in pulsing motions with every word and breath.

"No!" Allura cried, recognizing what it was and putting her hands up to form a shield, protecting everyone behind her from it at the risk of her own life should the shield fail as quickly as Lotor's.

Speaking of, Lotor and Ryou were not behind her. They persisted, fighting through her wave with determination, at first finding it easy and the wave to be weaker than her blasts, if not for the sudden crash within their cores that stopped them in their tracks.

"Get out of there!" Jiro yelled with no luck just as Honerva's voice became clear again and said four little words.

"Self equals dark side."

Another boom, stronger than the ones before it, another shockwave and both of the White Lanterns were struck from the air, falling to the ground both stiff with dread and shaking like newborn fawns, their eyes wide and wet with tears.

"We can't do this." Lotor's voice had become small and feeble, whimpering as he was now on his hands and knees, eyes cast down as the tears turned a sickly black color. "We can't win."

Monster.

"Shut up." Ryou growled, hearing the voices he thought he shoved deep into his subconscious long ago.

Murderer.

"Shut up shut up shut up!" He held his ears and shook his head, his teeth clenched so tightly he felt them cracking.

Failure.

Disappointment.

Just die.

Die.

Diediediediediediediediediediediediediediediediediediediediediediediediediediediediediediediediediediediediediediediediediediediediediediediedie-

"SHUT THE FUCK UP!" Ryou roared, unaware that he burned a brilliant and fiery red as the rage that filled his core had overpowered every other light within him in that moment and was fighting those lights for control. "SHUTUPSHUTUPSHUTUP!" He continued to howl as he managed to land and stay on one knee, struggling to fight through the words that buzzed in his skull and stand up. "Shut up! Leave me alone dammit! GO TO HELL!" His words were nearly incoherent and drowned in the inhuman guttural noise that came out of his throat in place of his actual voice, the same black tears falling from his eyes that were themselves willed with red light.

He wasn't sure what was going on in Lotor's brain that reduced him to this sniveling, fearful mess that showed no hints of the proud warrior or even the aspiring defender of justice he was before but Ryou himself was having quite enough of the echoing voices in his head that he could no longer recognize as either his own or those of the black energy.

What little strength he had gave out, his entire being flickering with light, and he too was reduced to a hissing teary eyed creature.

"This is true power!" Honerva declared triumphantly, seeing the horror stricken on the Paladins' faces and even indulging in the hateful murderous glares of the Black and Red Paladins and her little useless clone. "You hold back because you're weak! All of you! All of you will be nothing but puppets at my hands!"

Ryou had managed to turn his head ever so slightly and was able to see past the haze of his overwhelming rage and the black mist of death to see Allura drop her shield and take a defiant step forward.

"You're wrong." Allura glared at Honerva, who was amused by the princess. "The power you wield strips others of life and will! A life under such conditions is no life at all! To truly live-" She looked to Lotor to her right, her hand beginning to glow, even more so when Takashi held it and glowing brighter as Keith and Jiro joined in. "Is to be free of the chains of your past!" She looked to Ryou, her left hand also starting to brighten with energy, growing as Lance, Pidge, and Hunk added to the chain. "To find joy and passion to spite all the misery and despair thrown our way!"

Her markings were now glowing as well and the pinks of her armor bleached themselves white as the Voltron symbol changed. Ryou felt himself becoming stronger, the flickering spectrum of light he was now stabilizing into white once more, and he had gained enough strength enough to stand however unsteadily on his two feet. On the other side of Honerva, confused but growing more and more angered, he saw Lotor pull himself up, practically ablaze with energy and standing tall.

"The self, the true self-" Allura continued, closing her eyes and her voice booming, unaware of the glowing orb behind her and the Paladins.

"Don't you dare!" Honerva charged more energy but it was too late.

"Equals light side!"

Allura opened her eyes, revealing they were pure white with power, her voice echoing over itself many times over and joined by others. That light began to spread and as everything went white, Honerva's screeching fading farther and farther away, Ryou swore he saw ghostly images of other beings behind the Paladins and right behind Allura was a woman who looked almost exactly like her, though a bit older looking and dressed in pink, her mouth speaking but he could hear no words, though in his heart he knew that soundless voice.

......

......

......

............

............

............

He felt heavy but weightless. All there but scattered at the same time, yet with each second he felt himself getting back together as he stirred and felt another presence next to him and when he finally, slowly, woke up, Ryou for once recognized the ceiling he was staring at.

"Finally awake now are you?" Romelle's voice was soft but had a joking edge that made it all the more sweeter. She was sitting next to his bed, a few bandages here and there on her and judging by how clean they looked, he figured she either only had a few scrapes or he was out for at least a week if those injures were able to heal so well.

"Hey," Ryou huffed, voice hoarse and awkward from not being used in a while and his initial guess was more or less confirmed.

"If you two start singing some Disney duet, I'm going to puke." Damian's voice surprised him.

"Oh my god they're all here aren't they?" Ryou sighed but smiled, now sensing more bodies in the room and recognizing each of them.

"You know it buttmunch" Takashi called from another part of the room.

Pushing himself up and with some help from Romelle, Ryou sat up and saw that Takashi, Keith, and Jiro were also in the room, along with all of the Wayne boys who each took up a bed just because there were no other places to sit in one of the Watchtower's hospital rooms.

"Fashionably late as always," Jason roughly but cheerfully shoved Ryou's shoulder and ruffled his shaggy hair a bit.

Ryou coughed out half a laugh, practically feeling some bones break from what he knew was a playful gesture of affection. "How's everyone else?"

"Lance, Hunk, and Pidge are with their families. Lotor is with the Blades, including a few new members, and Allura-" Takashi paused in the middle of explaining and looking a bit concerned.

Just as Ryou may have started to believe the worst, that was damn near one of the only reasons someone would pause when talking about someone, Romelle huffed and crossed her arms, leaning back in her chair and groaning.

"She's with the Justice League, even though I told her to stay in bed." Romelle, surprisingly, sounded more like an annoyed sister that had scolded her family one too many times and yet not enough it seemed than her usual distant and uninterested outsider-that-could-not-care-less-even-if-payed tone she usually had when it came to team Voltron.

"I'm surprised she's still alive after all of that," Tim cracked a smile. "I mean, she brought back two whole planets and fixed all the tears in reality Honerva was making in one go, something that's obviously dangerous if it almost killed someone, right Ryou?"

"Eeehhh," Ryou shrugged and he earned another more annoyed shove from Jason which hurt a bit more than the last one.

"She's like Bruce," Jason nonetheless huffed and smiled. "And you know him-"

"Work is never done." All of the Bat family boys, including Keith, said in unison, their tones varying with the words.

"By the stars that is creepy," Romelle raised an eyebrow, hissing and even almost hiding a little shudder.

"Hey, you're the one who fell in love with this magpie of a guy," Dick nudged Ryou's shoulder, incredibly more gentle than both of Jason's. "This is the least weirdest thing you're gonna be seeing now."

Romelle groaned again but found herself smiling, looking at Ryou with a knowing look and putting her hand on his.

"Wait-" Ryou looked to Tim. "Two planets?"

"Yep." Takashi answered though he sounded just the tiniest bit confused as well. "Altea and Daibaazal are back. No inhabitants but apparently they're in stable orbit now and all ecosystems aren't showing any abnormalities according to Coran."

Ryou gasped slightly, eyes widening with a bit of hope and he looked to Romelle. "I think I have an idea."

Romelle rolled her eyes. "Is the Castle of the Lions not enough for you? And your little hoard of Galra weapons, little magpie?"

"Fair enough," Ryou blushed a little but smiled at her cheerfully and squeezing her hand a bit, earning a delightfully flustered look from her that she was a bit too slow to hide.

"Although," Romelle cleared her throat and continued, standing up, still holding his hand. "I would like to talk to you. Alone, preferably." She looked at the others with a stern glare.

"Oh," Ryou looked to his brothers, who all seemed to think they knew what it was about and each shared a knowing look. "Alright, let's uh-" He got up and noticed he had none of his rings "Hey, where's my stuff?"

"I got 'em," Taka raised his hand, flashing the white ring. "You can have one so catch-!"

A bit bullshit but fine, Ryou could live with that, he honestly was ready for another two days of napping if he wasn't set loose on a new project the second he got out of the Watchtower, which he doubted if Bruce had more or less confiscated the rings. However, as soon as the ring left Takashi's hand, time seemed to slow down as the room, and possibly the whole world, became washed in monochrome, all colors washing out into varying shades of grays, blacks, and whites.

The ring glowed, still the only thing moving besides Ryou's consciousness, and he saw the orb again. In a small flash, the orb was replaced by an image of Death and the ghostly woman that looked like Allura he vaguely remembered seeing, her mouth once again moving and this time her voice, oh so familiar now, rang clear as a bell.

"Good bye," the Allura-look-alike, Melenor he now remembered Varice's story of the original Paladins of Voltron, smiled at him and curtsied, her pink dress now replaced with pinkish-gold armor that he assumed, given by how Death gave Ryou a friendly smile and wave, was what she died in. The two disappeared in another flash of light and with their leaving the world became full of color and movement again as if nothing had happened.

Ryou caught the ring, pausing to look at it and noticing the faintest etching of alien words on the inside of the ring, and stuffed it in his pocket. "Thanks." He winked at his brothers, following Romelle out the room, again with a bit of help this time from his brothers as naturally he had a few medically important things hooked up to him in the time he was knocked out, and he followed her all the way to the garden, where they can see the Earth. The area was empty, most of the League busy both in the Watchtower and back down with the Garrison and other world governments, probably preparing or already in various political meetings now that another pocket of the universe was aware of Earth.

It was here that Romelle dropped her posture ever so slightly and sighed as she looked at the planet again. She was fiddling with the blue ring on her finger, which made Ryou suddenly aware of the blue ring that Jason had not so subtly slipped into his pocket and put on as soon as he could.

"Ryou," her arms were still crossed and she tightened her grip as if trying to comfort herself but finding it didn't work. "If I go to Altea... will you go with me?"

"If you want me to," Ryou answered immediately and with a soft smile, though he quickly saw that those words weren't enough.

"But what if it's not what I dreamed it would be?" She lowered her arms and her gaze, though her fists were still clenched. "What if it's not like the stories and hopes we grew up hearing? What happens then? What happens to Pollux now? To my father? The legacy of war he was born into and that I carry now?" She looked at him with eyes filled with fear and sorrow. "What happens now?"

Thinking at one hundred miles a second, Ryou took a breath and looked at the Earth and past it, past the moon, past the stars, and past the glimmer of sunlight that hit the Earth just right in a blooming burst of golden light. "Well," he looked at her, his hand gently taking hold of hers, feeling them loosen and welcome his touch. "There's always the bunker, right?"

Romelle let his words sink in and when they did she let herself practically collapse into a sitting position, Ryou falling with her as she let out a heavy relieved sigh. "That's right, we always have the bunker."

She smiled and leaned in in closer, putting her hand on his chest and resting her head on his heart, a familiar gesture that made him just a bit weak in the knees that made him glad they had sat down now.

Ryou wrapped his arms around her, seeing the blue ring shining on his finger and he wanted this moment, this moment of holding her in his arms, of sharing hope and yet another talk of their future together-

Ah, he thought. Together. That...sounded nice. He looked up again, he noticed a white light beam across the vastness, almost invisible in the gleaming sunlight of a new day.

A new day in a new universe.

A new universe free of fear and full of shimmering, luminous promise.

And today, this new tomorrow, was only the beginning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, it's been a long time coming. I have some half baked plans of reposting my old tumblr fics here but I need to organize some of them first because man are they scattered. Maybe another story or two, if I ever get around to writing one because I had a lot of outlines, some I actually liked, on my old laptop and wanted to write at least one but was so caught up in Light Catcher and its admittedly really bad sequel that you thankfully don't have to sit through...unless I actually end up writing a hopefully better version of it haha.
> 
> But my rambling aside, thank you for sticking with this story, for all the kudos, bookmarks, and comments. I think I have another story in me somewhere, just need to find it and stick with it.
> 
> Until then, stay awesome!

**Author's Note:**

> WELCOME TO LIGHT CATCHER PART 3!
> 
> The original version of this was somewhat sloppy and honestly just a lot of stalling since I wrote Light Catcher somewhere around S5 I believe, and was still in the mindset of "can't deviate from canon", which meant a lot of rewriting and trying to work with canon details before realizing canon kinda sucks and if I'm gonna write something for fun, it's gonna be awesome, so enjoy!


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